So long as the world is around there will be people whom come across this stuff and get interested, some poeple will collect whatever they find in dumpsters, garage sales, garbage dumps etc. instead of oxalic acid questions there will be questions on carbon clear coat repair, massive amounts of questions on bringing dead sti shifters back to life. All the same kind of themes will come up, just slightly different.

All these high priced super bicycles will find owners sooner or later, stuff can't sit in a bike shop forever, so it will get marked down till its affordable.
Maybe there will be a new SunTour- quality components that work just as well or better at a fraction of the price (maybe Microtech can fill their shoes), and possibly blow everything with a few bad decisions. Cervelo will be the new Colnago, or perhaps Colnago junior if Colnago is still around. Maybe we have reached a finite point on how good a derailleur or a cassette could be, with all those ramped and pinned cogs I dont think bikes could possibly shift any better now.

I'm not sure on that...steels have come a long way (Columbus EL, Genius...Reynolds 953...OS Platinum) but we still like our Reynolds 531. Those were incremental steel improvements...assuming the future of bikes is actually a more advanced carbon evolution, that's an evolution as well. I think our love of lugged steel has more to do with the standards of the time than it does an inherent superiority. I don't see collectible as differing much from classics. People are going to want to collect the classics and 25 years from now a kid is going to look with love in his eyes at the "classic" Cervelo Soloist he just scored at a flea market.

IMHO Todays bikes will be classics and will be collectable, but not all of them. There's a ton of aluminum framed bikes with (or without) CF forks that have a harsh ride, are not particularly light and don't have very good components. They will be expendable. On the other hand, some bikes like the light fast Cannondales are already sought after and will do better as years go by.
One thing I feel strongly about is the diversity of todays bikes. Geez there's a frame for almost every type of rider. Race, touring, relaxed geometry, and so on, CF has been a designers dream as all the majors submit their different design in an effort to segment the market. Today's collector is sort of stuck with vintage frame designs that varied somewhat but not too much. As a collector of short top tube, mid-sized bikes I can testify, finding an odd frame is very difficult. That won't be true tomorrow because it's not true when you buy a new bike today. One quick ride to the local LBS will find a lot of different designs. Tommorrows collector will be able to buy a frame, modify it with readily available stems and seatposts and have a vintage ride that fits like a glove.
I also feel that today's older CF bikes with lugs are already collectable. They were expensive, not many made and it's an outdated design with good ride charachteristics. What more could you ask for. But today's low end CF is going to be tomorrow's low end double butted chromoly steel. Yeah they have a nice ride, but they won't be rare and they'll all ride about the same, nice but not great.

I guess I didn't convey it right, let me try again.

Today we, those of our ilk :) view lugged steel frames as we do because they are....durable, handcrafted (in a lot of cases), elegant, ride nicely, etc. And that's because we compare them to the aluminum and carbon frames of today. What I'm suggesting is that 25 years from now I don't think there will be the love for the materials and methods of today in the same romantic way we view lugged steel.

Do you really see someone waxing rhapsodic about a plain old carbon Madone when they can have a whateverubermaterial frame 25 years from now? I don't because I guess I view the lugged steel frames as much as art as technology whereas I view carbon frames more as pure technology for the sake of it.

This is a very good and thoughtful discussion. Thanks.

Now the question: During what model year did Corvette begin to have fiberglass bodies? They're collectable, right?

They started out fiberglass right?

1953--and they only built 300.

I guess we just don't see it the same way Keith...and we really don't know what the future will hold. Maybe they'll be building frames from some as yet unused material that people in the future will find too lacking in ____ compared with the fancy carbon bike he couldn't afford as a kid.

I guess the real point of contention is why we ride and like what we ride and like. You're positing that it's superior...I'm positing that it's nostalgia and we grew up with it.

And worth so much more in Scottsdale, lately!

We'll just have to wait and see what happens. I do think the Surly will become a classic of it's own.

Schwa? Are you talking about Barrett Jackson?

They will, you can bet on it.
All you have to do is have a look at the audio scene to get your answer.
And the fact that lots of carbon bikes will have tons of racing history will only add to it. Carbon will become collectable just like lugged steel. And the fact that it also outperforms steel will make those bikes better riders.
I never though an 86' Buick Grand National would become a collectable but it sure is.

I think I get what you are saying. mid 70s to late 80s steel lightweights were the result of years of incremental improvements. Not much market for, say, a 1940s or 1950s road bike, though I am sure there are exceptions.

Oregon Southpaw, I'm wondering if my bikes are slowly falling into the C&V range, and I bought them new, except the 3.0 which was a couple of years old and an 'outdated' race bike, and then rebuilt them all at least once so none are original. In other words, any bike that stands out in it's class now will be a collectable in the future, IMHO.

I guess I stand in B Girl's corner, if I read her post correctly, in that there is too much that's deemed disposable these days. If a bike was good when it was manufactured and it hasn't been trashed, it should still be good now... goes for cars also as I have an '89 Mustang GT. I also think there's nothing wrong with updating the group and wheelset on a 'C&V' frame... if that frame were made today, that's how it would be equipped, an excellant example is somebody here's Look running a Campy 10 speed. I can also appreciate a period correct restoration of an original bike/frame set.

There's always going to be friendly rivalry between the different frame materials and that's good. It'd be sooo boring if everybody liked the same thing.

Brad

The Corvette comparison is weak, I think. Since the Corvette body, certainly the older ones, is not part of the vehicle's basic structure, as well as for other reasons, it is inherently repairable/rebuildable ad infinitum, no matter what the damage. I think a carbon bike frame has only one life. When it is siginificantly damaged, it is trash (or at best, expensive art).
Therefore, unlike steel bikes, which relative to carbon are not only damage resistant, damage tolerant but also somewhat repairable (depending on the value of the frame vs cost of the repair), I don't foresee aging bike enthusiasts 20-30 years from now putting mega miles on their vintage carbon bikes like some of us do with our steel bikes (to the degree appropriate this argument also applies to aluminum).

I agree with your distinction as applied to structure, but not collectability. If there was a steel is real car collectors group, would they reject the Corvette?

This is great. So as not to hijack, I am going to start a separate thread on collectible carbon bikes.

Modern plastic bikes may become "classics" at some point -- who knows; stranger things have happened -- but I suspect I still won't be much interested in them.

Something about modern bikes just doesn't appeal to me. No soul, or something.

Good idea.
And there are companies around that repair carbon frames. There are people who repair carbon anything in their garages. I read a thread recently on home grown carbon motorcycle parts.
So carbon can be repaired and used. I enjoy my steel rides but I think any serious cyclist should ride a century on their favorite steel bike and one on a well fitted carbon bike.

From what I can tell, the salient improvements in modern steel alloys have more to do with allowing "modern" joining methods (e.g. TIG welding) than anything else. A properly brazed 531 or 753 frame should be just as strong as an otherwise identical TIG welded frame of modern steel.

I don't think we'll be the ones judging it. I'll probably never buy a CF bike because I feel the same way you do. Steel has worked just fine for me and if I want something ultra light, I'll go titanium. The ones who are going to be judging the Cervelo as classic are going to be people who are in their 30s and 40s and were 14 now. To that person, a steel bike will probably seem like how most of us would look at a high wheeler. It's interesting, and cool, but they won't want to ride it. There might be a few weirdos out there who start an obscure club dedicated to steel, but for the most part, the love will be for the CF bikes they drooled on as kids. Just like people like BG and I don't have much interest in high wheelers or 3 speeds...we want the Columbus SLX racing bikes we learned to drool on while fantasizing about being the next Lemond.

I'm a little worried about arguing this point because I'm in well over my head (I am not qualified to argue with you over steel properties)...but I was under the impression that the 953 level steels were a dramatic difference for both weight and corrosion resistance, and that many have it built lugged.

I finally found my flux capasitor, the answer to you question is yes. Gotta go, I've got a shopping list I gotta fill.

Don't know if it's classic, but I like it:

http://img125.imageshack.us/img125/3...5000red5ab.jpg

I can't speak for the 50s Chevys, but to me, it sounds like a new Chevy Nova (the 60s version, not the Corolla) - a crap car, but one immensely compatible with a huge number of extremely inexpensive performance parts. A Fox Body mustang is just a small, light, and convenient place to stuff a nice drivetrain - in short, the latest iteration of the Model A "Hot Rods" of the 50s.

There is, however, a bit of a difference - these cars aren't just a convenient mounting bracket for a small-block. The Subaru WRX is, after ten years, still the best car in its' class - light, cheap, practical, and astoundingly fast over all terrain. (Put it on dirt roads, and it'll outrun Corvettes.) The Toyota Supra was the first turn-key turbo demon - put on a bigger snail and crank up the boost, and with more or less stock components you could double the horsepower. The Honda Civic Si was the first hot hatchback to catch on in the 'States, offering sports car performance with all the economy and convenience of a tiny hatchback. And the Nissan GT-R was - and still is - the very limit of how far you could push conventional car technology.

These cars are a lot like the original Schwinn Paramounts - not just a blank slate for a custom product, but a complete package, different from anything before or since. As a result, all of these cars (with the exception of the WRX, which is basically just the same as the rally homologation special they put together for Japanese sale in 1992) have the potential to accrue a lot of value.

This does raise an interesting question: Are vintage bikes "ruined" by updates? While a full brifter conversion obviously ruins the spirit of the thing, disposable parts - rims, bottom brackets, et cetera - will eventually get replaced by superior modern parts. Does this destroy the value?

Following my pattern of "future classic analysis" (which is, in fact, ripped off wholesale from Top Gear,) these fufill all three main qualifications for a future classic:
1. Positive qualities: They're beautiful, they're light, and they're a joy to ride.
2. Negative qualities: They cost a fortune, and one small crash can render the frame worthless.
3. Scarcity: Between the price tag and attrition over time, these will become very rare indeed.

I'm not so sure. While Surly prodcts are very excellent, they may perhaps be too excellent to ever become collectible. Surly has shown no intention to heavily modify the design of any of their products (no surprise, considering that they largely produce modernized versions of old frame designs), and is not going out of business any time soon. Considering the huge number of frames produced and their potential for longevity, they're likely to remain a commodity product for years to come.


Actually, the vintage audio market's days are potentially limited. Most of the demand for vintage stuff - Marantz, McIntosh, acoustic research, and the like - is from people who grew up in the 60s and 70s and desperately wanted these products. Because they were built like tanks, quite a few of them remain.

The problem is what happened during the 1980s. For a period of about fifteen years, most audio products were generally pretty rubbish - the decreasing cost of silicon meant that audio equipment became a commodity item, and aside from a relatively small amount of high-end gear, everything else was rubbish. Audio equipment ceased to be an aspirational object - no teenager the 80s really lusted over a pair of Heils or B&Ws - and, as a result, people of my generation really have no motivation not to buy their vastly superior modern alternatives.

During the late 90s, things started to change. Better computers meant that even amateur hobbyists were gaining access to powerful computer-aided design tools, and new materials resulted in huge improvements in transducer technology. Increased competition and variety resulted in huge improvements in performance, price, and aesthetics, and started to push high-fi audio equipment back into the spotlight once again.

That's just the GNX, really, or perhaps people hoping to clone them. The GNX was a bit of a flop: While very fast, it was too weird, too complicated, and too expensive to actually sell. As a result, they're extremely rare cars.

One extremely strange variant of this car has been called the "Diesel Vader." In many states, diesel cars are basically exempt from all laws relating to emissions, engine swaps, or, to be quite honest, anything whatsoever. As a result, a few people have been buying up diesel Grand Nationals and stuffing enormous turbodiesel V8s under the hood, then boosting them to within an inch of their life. The end result is a frighteningly powerful and street-legal car.

Hmm, seems to me that lugged steel road bikes will retain a special place among the classics, not unlike the english 3 speeds do. But I cannot imagine that the CF machines and related technologies of today will not find their own place among the collectors and enthusiasts of the future. While it remains to be seen which technologies and builders will truly stand the test of time, some surely will.