Classic and vintage means "old school". people wish they could jump in the "way back machine" and live in the past. It's a little lame to yearn for the old days, and yet get yourself an old bike, put on some vintage tires, and go take a ride down some old country road. There you go, you're live in the past!

WOW! Didn't know that - it really works! You've changed my life!!!

Luckily, some of us got grandfathered in. Lifetime memberships.

"command +" works for me.

While I may yearn for some things of the past (i.e. 1969 Olds H/O), I ride old bikes simply because they're honestly better than anything I could get nowadays. For instance, I could buy a Riv Roadeo for $3,000, or I can spend $800 fixing up my Raleigh Pro and have a better bike that looks better, is full Campy Record and Neuvo Record, and has a heritage. I could get a surly cross check, or I could ride my Activa Trail that is almost the same thing that I nabbed for $80. I could buy one of those new Schwinn Coffee or some such city bike, or I can ride my Phillips 3 speed.

In every instance, they look better (IMO), they work just as well, if not better, and as they're old and (in the case of the second two) rather worthless, I don't feel bad modifying them out the wazoo. The Pro I kinda regard as a 1971 Dodge Challenger Hemi/4 speed. Don't modify it (my only exception is to swap clincher rims), and ride the piss out of it.

I know you are probably joking, but I am only 30, and it would have been impossible for me to own a Fuji Opus III back in 1984! And after trying newer road bikes, and then one of these I find the vintage bike to have more character and be more comfortable to ride. I even like the old suntour shifters on the downtube instead of the finger shifters!

But then again, I collect guitars and amplifiers that are 40+ years old and they really do sound and feel better. And I tool around on old 1970's Honda CB motorcycles, and a rusty 64 corvette. Am I nostalgic for these things? Impossible! I wasn't even alive yet when they were made!

I will +1 for the C&V forums being one of the kindest and coolest forums that I have ever participated in on the web.

The down side is that there are too many bikes on here that I wish I had.

Not entirely true, I have one bike here I wont normally admit to owning on a public forum mainly because I know I'd be mocked mercilessly for having it despite the face it works fine for what I got it for and doesn't have any of the problems most folks assign to this sort of bike.

Alright... I've got to know what it is after this vague yet elaborate description.
-Gene-

Clues are out there, one just has to put them all together.

Mr. Green... in the dining room... on the NEXT?

Best line of the day.

j

What kind of Magna is it?

Actually, this is a seriously lame aspect of C&V. "Everybody knows" that Huffy, Columbia, et. al. made crappy bikes, and Schwinn Varsinentals are boat anchors, and anything from China or x-mart will fall apart before you roll it down the driveway, by definition. This attitude has caused a rather contrarian reaction in me; I'm planning to restore just such an unworthy bike, then ride it in the company of much higher-class bikes, just to prove it works well enough.

There are two threads on this forum from last year that helped adjust my opinion on the importance of a brand name or technological superiority of a bike: this one, at https://mjgradziel.com/thelmajones/lu...eopenroad.html, which is the story of two young women who rode their bikes across the US in 1944; and the other is a more recent feature on the Mexican immigrants in LA who depend upon cheap bikes like Magna and Next as their main transportation to get to work daily ( I don't have that link handy).

Thanks loads. I am doomed.

Where is flammenwurfer? He just joined our ranks and is already entrenched in old bikes and project ideas.

It's not a Magna, I'm not that bad off just yet.

Prof. Plum in the conservatory with the Ross, it was the heaviest thing he could find.

Well, my old Huffy Mt. Storm is still in pieces till I can find an ashtabula crank that's long enough and I have an old Shimano FFS I'm thinking of dropping on it just for the freak factor, but that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm just biding my time till I can manage to somehow afford what I like to think of as a "real" bike.

My God, man. Will you leave us NOTHING about which to snob.

We're the only cyclists on the planet who brag about how cheap our stuff is. We encourage one another to not pay more even when some of us sell bikes for money. We're cheapskates, we ride things that bike shops declared obsolete when Nixon was still popular and restore things that were used in rural chicken coop constructions.

And you think we are too discerning over brand names.

Leave us something, I beg of thee.

Colby and baby Swiss until I die.