Sixty Fiver

What you have there is a very nice bicycle that will someday be considered classic... folks will ooh and ahh over the fact it is an early GT road bike with early brifters.

Wait... some folks are already doing that.

The pre Pacific GT's are really nice bikes... Gt really really overbuilt everything and their triple triangle, although not unique, does set them apart.

If you go back in time you will see that many builders used a triple triangle and the builder I work with was using this 25 years ago and had never seen a GT but drew from a time much farther back.

wrk101

I really like your bike, a lot. But anything that starts with a 1990s as far as date, is not vintage. So then the question is to whether it is classic. Modern bikes that "qualify" for classic IMHO have a few traits.

1. A really desirable brand (Colnago, EM, etc).

2. Not required, but preferably a lugged steel frame.


I have a similar era bike, a steel 1995 Fuji Roubaix. All Shimano eight speed 105 STI. Not vintage, not classic, but a nice bike nonetheless.

Grim

My oldest thinks Gremlins are cool and here in the south there is a few still on the road. I roll my eyes when she says that. I am more of a GM guy and I have a convertable 1970 LeMans in my fleet and the wife wants a 71 Chevelle in the worst way. About the only Chrysler products I would consider would be Birds (Super and Road runner) Cuda, GTX and AMX...
Back to the GT.
We are getting close to the point where Brifter bikes are going to start being of a age appropriate to this forum. Early Brifrifters like RSX and 600 tri's ARE going to be a part of this forum more frequently very soon. There is already a thread here about upgrading older frames to them that is very popular thread. I like Brifters and my main commuters have them. They are wonderful in that they are in your hands and you can shift up or down while standing and powering a hill or away from a light. I feel more confident with them in heavy traffic when I don't have to take my hands off the bars. My casual Sunday riders, yeah I like the down tube or bar end shifters are fun but my daily drivers I will take the brifters over them any day.

There has been many referenced to this being more of a home for "Steel" but the fact is Manufactures like Klein and Cannondale have many bikes that are age appropriate here and there are more and more threads popping up dedicated to some of the Aluminum bikes. Honestly 2 years ago when I first joined it almost seems a sin to talk about aluminum bikes here and that has passed.

The Carbon bikes I think may be the breaking point and one of the biggest reasons is eventually they break and repairing them is not a option in many cases. The materail is weakend by scratches and UV. Manufactures are already putting age disclaimers on carbon forks and bars. I think they just wont stand the test of time because the materiel gets weak with age. I sure look forward to buying broken carbon bikes to strip the high end drive trains including brifters from them.

Oldpeddaller

There's a bike in this photo?

Did you really have the presence of mind to whip out a camera and take the photo? Impressive reactions! GT road bikes are distinctive IMHO

jtgotsjets

My opinion:

Neither classic nor vintage, but regardless, C&V is the place to post it. You'd be laughed right out of the Roadie forum.

I like it.

sillygolem

I've restored cars professionally and I've worked at a lot of shows. In general people go for cars that they remember from their childhood or ones that they just don't see anymore. Pre-WWII cars used to be the thing to get, but the people who remember them have mostly died off so they've dropped in value while muscle cars have skyrocketed.

At the last show I was at there were lines of serious Detroit metal from the '60s but all the attention was on a BMW Isetta and a mid-80's Toyota truck converted to electric power. The former was a joke when it was released and the later as common as a department store bike, but in an unusual form.

I bought a Free Spirit 10-speed recently and have had a lot of interest in it from a friend because he had one exactly like it as his first bike. There's nothing remarkable about the bike itself, but it comes with a lot of memories. Likewise, someday someone will pick up one of these GTs and reminisce when it was more than just a label slapped on a generic bike.

DVC45

For me, 25+ old bike moded with brifters = still C&V.

Bikes that come with brifters from the get go = not C&V.

Quill stem or not.

vincev

As in fire arms being old doesnt turn an item into a classic.It just becomes vintage or "old".Many sellers use "vintage" instead of "old' to lure uninformed into thinking they hit gold.Anything ever made has someone who collects it.Still doesnt make it a classic,maybe at best a collectable.That opens a whole new debate.If you enjoy collecting something ,do it.Classics mostly start out as something special and retain that status and become more desirable with age.