Essthreetee

I am new to this...C&V.

I find myself wanting a nice, right sized, fancy lugged bike that I can work on...slowly. Cleaning, gathering parts as I find them. Cleaning some more.

But I keep getting distracted with what to look for. And the reasons behind it.

I think, maybe a nice old Bianchi...because that is what I am riding now.

Then I think, Raleigh...why not?

Then I think, Peugeot...because the schools mascot where I work is a lion, and that might be fun to collect Peugeot stuff.

Then I see Colnagos, and many others..........argh, anyone?

How did you choose?

Velognome 

You don't....you/we buy them all

squirtdad

karma: what shows up that fits and the price is right extra bonus points for liking the color

iab

Get the blue one.

unless you want to go fast. Then get the red one.

rootboy 

You will know it, when you see it.

theblackbullet

If it fits, is a good deal, and I have the money, I buy it. lol

Essthreetee

Well then so far I haven't seen it. Because I keep wanting a LOT.

RobbieTunes

Get the Centurion for $175 and call it a day.
You'll branch out later, anyway.

Howard

I think you'll save yourself a lot of heartache if you start with something mid-80's with standard threading. Something Japanese or US made (Schwinn, Trek, Panasonic, Nishiki, Univega, Miyata, etc) with a sport touring geometry. Criterium frames always were a little tighter, a lot less comfortable, and a lot less open about what kind of parts they needed (26 teeth max, 26 teeth wrap was pretty common for a racing derailler, for example).

Why bikes from that era? Parts for these were pretty standardized - and are still pretty readily available. Tolerances are loose and a pretty wide variety of tires, rims, cranks, freewheels, and brakes can be made to work.

But the big deal is figuring out what tools you need and can live without, and getting some practice in on a relatively healthy patient. When you're done, the bike will probably ride very nicely, and you'll know how to pull and replace a bottom bracket, how to repack wheel bearings, and how to spill all the bearings from the headset over the garage floor.

But best of all for the long term, you'll have a quality set of hex wrenches, a crank arm puller, a set of BB tools, a good chain tool, a good set of cone wrenches and maybe a couple different flavors of freewheel remover, and some confidence in your abilities. The last think anybody wants on a first project is to break a $200 derailleur, cross thread a French BB, or spend months searching for a one-off crank arm.

My $0.02

Essthreetee

Ok. Well maybe I guess I should be more clear. I started with a Schwinn Continental. Rebuilt it all and got hooked. Then came the Bianchi Limited. I have built it up from just a frame, sourcing from here, eBay, and other various sources. I am real happy with it. It rides nice and gets ridden daily, but I guess am bored. I want to move to the next one. Something a little nicer. Something with some style. Something that will take me a while (on purpose). That is where I am stuck.

20grit

Go Dutch and don't look back?

wrk101

+1 Let the deal dictate. Most of my fleet were bikes I just happened upon, rather than any particular model or brand I was seeking.

On a keeper, now I just look for something better than what I already have. That's getting harder and harder as I have upgraded many times over the years.

+1 To below, I would add whatever I drooled over in high school/college. My senior in high school, Nishkis were just coming out. What a revelation! For about the price of my porky Schwinn Continental (sorry, I see you started with one), I could buy a Nishiki International, with cromoly frame, alloy crankset, alloy wheels, good derailleurs, and about 10 pounds lighter too! I had to have one!! The situation back then just didn't work out. In the last four years, I have probably owned over 30 Nishikis, and at least 15 of them were either early Internationals (pre1975) or Competitions (one step up). I'm working on 3 Competitions right now. Strangely, I haven't kept one yet. 2 of the Competitions I'm working on are my size. Maybe one will stay. One thing that lesson 40 years ago gave me was an appreciation for the Japanese made bikes. So most of the Schwinns I have now were made in Japan. Go figure.

echo

The bike will find you...

Howard

Cool.

In that case, how about a baguette porteur?
Like a UE 8. Saw one of these last weekend. Very long on style. Kind of a rando bike for the proletariat.
Link
https://www.mytenspeeds.com/My_TenSpe...troduction.htm

spacemanz

That's about right. What worked best for me, was to stop actively looking. I put everything on the back burner, for the winter, and then BAM, I found 3 very nice bikes/frames in a row, one in November (Frejus), one in December (Bertin), & one in January (Miele). None over $200. I think I need to start actively looking again, because I'm running out of room in the basement.

AZORCH

I was going to say the same thing. There's a lot of truth in this.

lasauge 

My bikes have all been built the same way: decide I want to do a particular kind of riding that my current bikes aren't great for, find an appropriate, affordable frame that will allow me to do it, add components that meet my needs/budget/frame, ride for a while, and eventually refine the build to make it just right. Aesthetics/names are important, but I prefer form following function (and did I mention that keeping costs down is important?), so I find the major parts I need first and choose the smaller bits as I go with an eye towards making the bike look good too.

This past summer I ended up with a very inexpensive hybrid and decided to trick it out and see how much rock-pounding abuse a heavy hybrid with terrible wheels can take (quite a bit, if you're not averse to spending quality time with a spoke wrench every few rides) before flipping it.

And that particular bug bit me hard - I love singletrack and dirt, but hate riding a pure mountain bike on the roads and trails to get to the dirt. So I sold off the cheapo-cross and started looking for something better and ended up with a sport touring frame from the C&V sale forum that met my criteria and built it up with parts I had laying around from previous builds and flips:

Cool bike, but I decided it could be better with wider bars, STI levers, and different tires. So I made the necessary changes and now this bike is 100% fun to ride:


Sure, I could have just bought a brand new cyclocross bike, but this one is 'just right' for me and was considerably less expensive than a brand new bike.

DiabloScott

Whatever I drooled over but couldn't afford when I was in college.

scozim 

Start with 1 and then move on to N+1. I wasn't looking for anything specific but knew I wanted French. Within 2 weeks I'd bought another French machine. Then I acquired some from my dad, found a few more cheap, etc.

Campagnerdo 

It's all about the deal. Sometimes you are presented with an opportunity you know you will never get again.

shoota 

FindNewBike()
[
int total;
for(int i=0; i<infinity; i++)
[
total = total +1;
]
return total;
]

redneckwes

The summer of 1984 I won a Bike-a-thon, I raised $500+ for St Judes hospital, a local Bike shop offered a 10 speed to the top fund raiser.

We went to the shop and picked out a jet black Peugeot P8, too big for me to ride at that point. Dad had to pay a little extra as the Peugeot was more expensive than the bike offered.

Since that time I have always had a Peugeot. Even though I ride Raleigh's quite a bit now, that P8 is still hanging on the garage wall.

canyoneagle

+100

Arrowana

It's whatever makes an appearance for a price I can not resist, or catches my eye. When looking for a road frame to build up for this spring, I had something with lugged steel in mind, and ended up getting a Cannondale instead.

sailorbenjamin

Get one of each, then sell the ones that you don't like as much.