At what age is a bike considered classic or vintage?

Age has nothing to do with it.

There's no rigid definition.

What they said. Go to a large charity/group ride.
Look around at what's being ridden. 99% of those aren't C&V.

What they said. Go to a large charity/group ride.
Look around at what's being ridden.
99% of those aren't C&V.

Then see who's talking to each other about their bikes, hubs, components.
99% of those are C&V.

Or at least we think we are.

As said above there is no firm definition. There are some C&V fans who consider anything with a deraileur to be Modern and only old SS/FG and IGH is considered Vintage. As for this forum I believe for most part they try and stick to bikes roughly 20 to 25 years and older, so anything older than say a 90-92ish bike. I believe in the sticky threads at the top of the forum is the rules and the dating of the bikes for this thread.

Some here stick mostly with older middleweight 3+ speed cruiser and "Club" bikes other like anything that might be Italian from '79 and older.

I persoanlly take a slightly different view and base my break down on technological advances. Anything older than say '84/85ish is a real C&V machine. Bikes from '85 to '92ish are what I call 'Nuovo Classics'. From the advent of the deraileur systems in the "Golden Age" (the 1930's as labeled by the "Dancing Chain") bikes had not changed much. There were various derailleur designs and crank systems but most all bikes were steel and had brake cables flapping in the breeze.

In '85ish bikes saw the first big changes since the industry and consumers settled on the two pulley parrellelagram derailleur and double rings. Indexing and aero brake lever came on the scene alnong with aluminum bikes and some Ti bikes becomeing musch more mainstream. The road bike or "10spd" took a huge technological step but still retained it classic look of drop bars, DT shifters and round tubing. In '93/94ish the classic road bike or "10spd" changed again with most employing "Brifter" type shifting and Aluminium displacing steel and Carbon Fiber becoming mainsteam. Alas the classic look of skinny metal tubes with popsicle stick looking shifters and toeclips faded from the shoroom floor to be replace by fat aerofiol shaped carbon and aluminium with tubing shapes and weights the Wright Brother would stand in awe of.

OH Pardon me I'll get off my soap box now, didn't mean to bore you

25 years old +/- for vintage. I flex that definition to include anything with a steel lugged frame and DT shifting.

Classic can be any age.

That's one you'll have to answer yourself. No consensus.

Copy/Pasted from when this was asked last week:

This should really be a sticky.

If you want to post it, post it. Folks will be interested or they won't be. This isn't a purist site like the CR list...the CR list is great, and I think it's awesome to have guidelines, but that's not what this place has been (at least since I've been here). Most here are very broad in what they like and there is a lot of utilitarianism vs. collection perfection.

Vintage gets defined differently by different folks. A common cut off (the CR cut off) is 1983. Another common definition is 25 or 20 years ago.

Classic is even less defined...to me classic is a bike that in some way exemplifies it's time or type. It's the bikes that were innovative and that people remember. Classics are the bikes that have obsessive forums dedicated to them. Classics are the best of the best. Classic can also be interpreted as built with more traditional methods...like my Marnati being silver brazed, lugged and pin and tacked.

I'm more interested in classic than vintage; most old bikes are just old bikes. The classic AND vintage bikes are the ones people tend to really get enthusiastic about here...SBDU Raleighs, pre-ic lug De Rosas, Rene Herse and such.

BG, I really like how you break this topic down into these categories. When I got to thinking about it I guess I probably think along very similar lines myself, mostly because some of the changes in technology coincides with my own personal timeline: five to six to seven speed; changes in shifters; eight, nine, ten speed; changes in tubing; and so forth. I don't know if such things designate a "classic" bike or not, but they are certainly meaningful to me and relate to the bikes that appeal to me.

This topic seems to come up a lot and there are always a million different takes on it. I agree: this really needs to be a sticky.

If you think it is Classic and Vintage, then it is.

+1 to Thrifty Bill's quote.

IMHO pre-early 1990's would generally qualify, as it is during that time large brands such as Schwinn changed hands and Peugeot withdrew from the US market.

With regard to mountain bikes, I'd say vintage MTB's are steel framed, built prior to the advent of low cost suspension forks and threadless headsets.