I'm halfway through the 2012 Seattle to Portland (STP) ride. Here at the Centralia halfway point, I've been killing time by looking for C&V bikes among the thousands of bicycles here.

Result: Almost none.

I've seen a Colnago (with Deltas!), a Benotto, a Peugeot Super Competition. My own Peugeot PSV. A couple of Klein Quantums. Several early 1990s Cannondales. A few LeMonds, though only two looked pre-Trek. A old-but-not-immediately-identifiable Raleigh. A Specialized Epic Allez. There are several older lugged Japanese bikes - Nishiki, Fuji. C'est tout.

Of course, I didn't lay eyeballs on every single bicycle here. I think there are, or by tonight will be, 5,000 or so bikes stacked up in the Centralia College campus. I did, however, scan at least 2,000 bikes.

I guess we of the C & V persuasion are indeed a deviant micro-culture.

For the record, my obsolete French bike did just fine. Today we rode 98.9 miles at 17.0 mph avg speed. I use Cyclemeter, which reports 10 mile segments. Most of the segments were at 18 mph avg speed, but a few down at 15 mph dragged things down, and the first 10 miles was at only 13 mph. Vive La France!

I went on a group ride a few weeks ago, here in the US, and was the only one on a steel bike. Probably 40 riders. Mostly carbon.

They may be like me and have a preference to good old fashion steel but ride a modern (replaceable) alloy bike on most group rides.

I saw an odd one today. Alloy frame, carbon fork, low spoke count wheels, modern campy drivetrain, and vintage campy side pulls. It actually looked pretty good.

I long since quit looking, even though I notice them almost immediately.
We nod, swap that knowing look, and smugly roll on.
Last big ride, there were two of us on Centurions.
A beautiful Colnago rode around at the registrations, but was no where to be found on the ride.
The other couple of hundred were on aluminum or carbon.

However, after the ride, we were served wraps by two fine young things.
One of them had a Team Miyata leaning against the back wall.

I'm pretty much invisible on my modern carbon.
A man brought in a nice lugged Bianchi for me to fix today, Campy triple with Ergos.
I decided his "loaner bike" would have to be my modern carbon.
He may never get his bike back.

There is a guy with the local club that rides a Cinelli with no handlebar tape. I noticed that guy. I also can't keep up with him on my modern bike.

I don't bother going on group ride with modern bikes while on a vintage steed. I don't have anything with low gear ratios or really wide handlebars. My Raleigh pro has some crazy 45/21 low gear. It's really hilly here though. I do see a lot of exposed cables on bikes passing through town. That makes me feel good.

In the past month, I have "upgraded" to Ultegra 10-speed, the following:

- late 70's Colnago Super
- Mid-80's high-end Bianchi of some type (took the original C-Record off of it)
- Late 80's Miyata Team
- Mid-80's Peugeot PSV-10

These were for rides who already have thier plastic go-fast bikes, but have been doing longer (200 miles+) rides and prefer the older frames. These bikes were either hanging in the garage or sitting on wind-trainers. It is odd they all seemed to be coming in at once, and I felt weird about doing the Colnago and the Bianchi, but most of the owners kept the oringal stuff in case they wanted to change them back later (they will have to squish the rear triangles back to 126mm though).

I'm thinking of using a TA Triplizer and a wider BB to add a bailout low gear to the PSV. It has 53-42 and 12-24. On steeper climbs, I can keep up with modern riders and their compact doubles, but I'm working hard in 42 x 24 while they're in their 34 x 28.

Where are sl the nice C&V bikes??.... I do see a good number of older steel and Al bikes being used for commuting everyday in downtown SF. Once in a while I come aross something kinda special, but a lot are low to mid level bikes that work pretty well for commuting. What's cool is, a lot of them are being ridden by people much younger than the bikes, so, I suspect that they are conciously taking on the C&V bikes for what they are and are thoroughly enjoying them.
I was actually quite surprised that I did not see any nice C&V bikes in Europe last fall, when I was there. Just a lot of well used townie folders and cheap looking obscure (to us) brand bikes. I hear from some Euro C&Vers in this forum that C&V bikes and parts are not as easy to find as we think it would be. Maybe it could be true that C&Vers from Japan and Souteast Asian countries are buying them and all the components up??
I say, hold on to your C&V bikes and components as long as you can still find and get them,.....as I don't think it's gonna be any easier to do so in the future.

Chombi

I finished up my Nishiki Continental today - got it exactly the way I want it and I think I'll be happy on any kind of ride, regardless of the gearing.

I'm currently running 34/44/50 up front with 11-28 (11, 13, 15, 18, 21, 24, 28) rear and that's working really well for me. It's a little slower than my Ultegra-equipped Cannondale, sure... especially uphill, but it's got a much nicer overall ride...

Most of the bikes I see everyday are vintage. Then again, I live in an artsy college town.

I rode STP twice; first time was with my 2002 Davidson (with vintage Campy at that time) and the second was with my Cinelli Supercorsa (also vintage Campy). I, too, saw hardly any vintage stuff - but I was amazed at what some people were riding anyway (think Magnas and the like - wow!).

The plus side is that everyone wanted to talk about "that old-school bike - and those shoes!"



DD

I have some larger Heliocromatic freewheels which will get you to at least 28. I think your Campy Victory/Triomphe will swallow a 28T if you are still running the OEM on the PSV.

Visited Asheville NC, on the App trail and just off the Blue Ridge Parkway.....steel everywhere.
Found a shop that should have a sign that says "C&V bike shop," with tons for sale.
The hipsters were all on steel, though I don't see how a fixie on those hills would be easy.
A lot of pierced and inked younger crowd running around on steel. It's an earth ore crowd there.

Warmed my heart...sort of. Some of those chicks in black with ink and piercings are "interesting."

So, what do you think of the Seattle to Portland ride? I'm considering doing it with my son next year. If/when I do, it will be on classic steel because that's all I have to ride.

Don't they realize that those single-pivot sidepulls are DEATHTRAPS?!

I nearly laughed when I saw it (thinking about that thread)

I'm currently working downtown, on a construction site near a main intersection. I've keeping my eyes open at what bikes go by. Most of the steel ones are from the 80s, Bianchi, Raleigh, etc, usually a little dirty, not polished, with Shimano or Suntour. It's to be expectable because most people don't ride show bikes as commuters.

Then one day I spotted a spectacular black steel lugged bike. Too far away to make out the name, looked like it might have been power coated without labels. It had chrome forks, seat stays and chain stays, also chromed lugs. It was polished and blinding in the sun as it rode through the intersection, with shinny silver components, possible nova record.

I turned and said to the young co-worker beside me, "look at that bike, beautiful, I've got a bike like that too, with lots of chrome, except mine is champagne colored".

He says, "Oh yeah, an antique steel bike".

Made me realize, I'm getting old and steel bikes are very old in some peoples eyes. I don't think I'll be bragging to young people that I have a steel bike anymore.

A lot of people are spending a lot of money on loaded Surly LHTs... Someone still thinks steel is cool. They just want it to be new and easy.

Is there a thread for this somewhere?

Judging by Asheville, it may get you lucky.....