What is a C&V
 

What makes a bike a classic and what makes it a vintage? Is it a certain number of years or is there more than that?

Well, it's not likely carbon fiber...try a search, we've discussed this before ( and often)

There are no hard and fast rules, but many folks consider C&V to be at least 20 years old, or a continuation of styles, from an era when most bikes were steel, and many were of lugged construction. Not all, by any means, but The Universal Aluminum Bike of the 90's-present isn't. Doesn't mean we don't appreciate them, it's just that this forum is a little more focused on older, mostly steel bikes. There are other forums for other bikes.

Many of us have feet in several camps, but we discuss our older steel bikes here, or other bikes from that era.

It's kind of like art. We don't know what it is, but we know what it isn't. This particular dead horse has been beaten to glue a long time ago.

Thanks for the info. Ok, so C & V are one and the same? As opposed to Antique and Classic which are something like 50 years old and 25 years old?

The terminology is not formalized to the degree it is in the larger world of antiques and collectibles. Then we have shifts of meaning, in which "vintage" once meant having a single vintage year to being of a great vintage year, to just being old and good. Those of us who know vintage wines know that older is not necessarily better, it could just be stale or gone to vinegar.

Just an example of the problems if you try to do the obvious thing and use a common dictionary!

It's simple really. C&V bikes appeal to highly intelligent people with impeccably good taste.

:lol: There you have it. Now if we could just get a mod to lock this thread and make it a sticky we'd be cooking with gas!

old bikes

Vintage = any crappy old bike (they made millions of them). Every dept store, tire shop, hardware store, or whatever, had their own brand back during the boom. (Think All Pro = KMart's brand...)

Classic and Vintage = Higher quality old bike (they made thousands of them).

Classic = a bike you couldn't afford as a teenager!

Vintage = when you bring it to the LBS and they say, "you can't get parts for that anymore"

I err towards 15 years old rather than 20. Though in another 5 years, I guess that won't matter. Pretty much anything that existed before 1998 is good to go in my book. Then again, I'm biased, that's the era that I truly imprinted on cycling and became a student of its history: I graduated from high school in 1998.

I tend to think that youngest edge of C&V can be summed up by the components more than anything else-

Some general rules per my definition of the near edge of C&V:

• First generation brifters if at all

• No more than 8 speeds (rare campagnolo exemptions here)

• Some exotic materials, but more or less all frames based around DT shfiters (even with brifters, the cable stops for the shift bosses tell the tale here) on the road side and cantilever brakes on the mountain side, possibly with some outdated disc brake mounting standard if at all.

• Mostly quill stems, but some aheadsets (back when what's now threadless was "aheadset" is enough of a clue that you're in the ballpark).

• On the Mtb side, elastomer forks are indicative of the era, as are travel distances of less than 3' up front and 4" in the back

It's something best described with pictures and not polemics.

C&V = stuff you cannot really find in store nowadays.

Also their paint style tend to be less busy and more elegant. More classy that way if you ask me.

except the late 80s stuff :lol:

You Rang?
 

Did I hear you calling me? ;)

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8234/8...1868cdf8_b.jpg
Alpine Cycles - Mid- to Late-80's - 2 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr

Dammit, you beat me too it, I was going to say something like that! ;)

I am proud just to be around you all!! :beer:

Both "Classic" and "Vintage" appear to be ebay synonyms for old. I wouldn't read them as indicators of merit or otherwise.

Thanks, I always knew I am highly intelligent and have impeccably good taste :lol:
For me C&V bikes are the higher end bikes until around 1990. I now consider the first generation ergopower classic.
Threadless means (for me) no C&V, also aluminium, carbon and titanium are not C&V.
Of course there are many exceptions, like Vitus and Alan frames.

LDB, As I see it, it's mostly it's a PC way to say "old". There are those that wet their pants when looking at an old newspaper bike, or a Schwinn Sting Ray, or pick a country steel road race bike or anything else that's old.

Some forums are more structured and rigid with their defination.

Brad

What Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said about hard-core pornography in Jacobellis v. Ohio: it resists definition, but "I know it when I see it."

Like apparently everyone else I have my own idea, generally pre-1980 and 10 (or less) speed, but just wondered if there were a more structured definition like with automobiles. Thanks for the input. It's interesting to see what others think.

Auchen, you've nailed it again!

We've discussed this topic over and over again and there are as many definitions as there are people with opinions. I like the folks who think of C&V as "old bikes," frankly, but even that is subjective and mostly depends on how old you happen to be. For instance, over on the CR they limit discussion to pre-1983 classic lightweights and that tends to work for me as I was a teen in the 70's. I cringe a little when someone pops up with an "old bike" built in 2003, but my interest gets piqued when someone mentions they're regularly riding a 50's era roadie (i.e., something far earlier than my own personal experience.) Many of us have discussed the idea that these bikes tend to be those we couldn't afford earlier in life and that is absolutely the case for me.

I think the best part though is that the folks in this forum are good natured (well, usually) and very sharing. Much of that discussion centers around esoterica and conjecture about a common interest - bike stuff from a bygone era. C&V, to me, is more than a bike definition - it's this collective consciousness of fading memories. It hasn't been that long ago when it was really tough to track down the kind of details or suggestions we share just as a matter of course every day on here.