I would know because I bought one, but also I was at my lbs today and saw a bunch of other steel bianchi throwbacks and I was drooling all over the place. Vintage style steel with modern components. Just curious what you're guys thoughts are on buying a throwback over buying a real vintage bike.

I don't see anything wrong with it. It's about time there were options for new bikes that don't have sloping top tubes.

A lot of what I've seen have straight blade forks, which I think is a bad idea,
otherwise, I guess you could do worse for a brand new $2,000 bicycle.

The older stuff around here is just so much better in construction details
and pricing on CL that I'm not tempted, but it's nice to see an alternative
for people in the new bike market.

What I have seen is more in the $800-$1000 range but you can obviously pay much more for higher end components and whatnot. Also I know the Bianchis are made in Taiwan but they are still engineered in Italy. Don't see how that makes them garbage.

Even with my discount, still cheaper to go with the vintage stuff. That said, if something ever happens to my Schwinn, I might consider new due to the difficulties of finding a mixte that fits me. And I'd totally buy a Raleigh International if I was swimming in money.

"Engineered" - I just don't buy that crap. Gas pipe with a sticker is gas pipe with a sticker. I'm also against people being racist against manufacturing in south east asia. These people need jobs too and there's no reason people in Taiwan can't make a good product.

Agreed.

My Salsas are built in Taiwan. While they may not have all of that "hand crafted charm" that some of mine do, they are a blast to own and ride.

Tough as nails, reliable all day long.

+1 quality frames can be made anywhere,even southeast asia

It's all good. As late as '98, Bianchi was doing "throwback" with the Trofeo.
Quality varies, but if a nice steel bike with decent components can be had, then have at it, old or new.

It's a global supply world now. If high end TdF frames can be made about anywhere, frames for those of us in the unwashed masses can, also. I met a lady from Colombia the other day; and she's looking for a Canopus for me.

I still meet folks who decry Asian-made products. They should check the source of their pacemakers, or the alerts when they've fallen and can't get up, or the fuel injectors and circuit boards on the ambulance that takes them to urgently needed medical care.

On the other hand, we may soon find out how good Pakistani-N Korean nuclear technology is.

I like "throwback" style stuff.. my 2010 Fauxtobecane single speed has a nice lugged fork, square taper BB cantilever brakes and a level top tube. I swapped out the modern crankset and cantis for higher end old school components I had on hand. being able to mix modern steel techology with classic bits is pretty sweet

I have no problem with the modern Chinese and Taiwanese frames. Their quality control is a lot better than what was coming out of most European factories during the early 1970s. One of the big reasons that Europe lost the business in the first place was because the Japanese eclipsed them in quality control and stole the entry level and then the mid-range market. In order to compete the Europeans moved the manufacturing to Asia. It wasn't just cheaper labour rates.

Thanks for your eloquent, well constructed addition to the thread, Tom.

New vintage-style bikes with vintage-style components are just a style. When riders recognize and value the durability and reputation of such bikes over the "benefits" of more modern bikes, it's only a matter of time until bigger manufacturers cotton on and start to fill that gap with "me, too" new ones.

Just another marketing ploy, a niche to fill.

lets be clear here, Bianchi has been making several steel bikes all along. the imola, vigorelli, brava... they've been doing it for years, decades. i don't know why everyone is ****ting on them like they suddenly made a bad product because they decided to throw some throwback decals on the same frame. no reason not to be able to pay homage to your heritage.

I'd hope people aren't ****ting on them because of the decals! They are sexy as hell.

I'm getting tired of throwback, or retro or whatever you want to call it. Some historian once said that a when a society starts to copy it's early work it's a sure sign that that society is in decline. Beginning with the neo-classical Roman stuff, then the Romanesque, then the Neo-Gothic and right down to the new Beetle, the new Mustang, the PT Cruise and the new new Beetle.
I'm just old enough to remember when we used to look forward to the new cars that were coming out and the new movies that were coming out. I'm well old enough to remember when the new cars were kinda dissappointing and sequels became the rage. When I was a kid in the 80s, if you wanted a fast car you didn't buy a new car, you got something from the 60s and fixed it up. Now, they've made it clear that they can't compete with the passion we had back then so they'll just copy the old stuff. We'll buy caricatures of antiques cause it reminds us of when our world wasn't in decline.
As for the Asians, I don't think it'll be long before they stop making our retro stuff for us and start making their own truly original stuff and then maybe we can look forward to what's coming again instead of what we've left behind.

Wow, that was a dour sounding post, now that I look at it. I guess new stuff has come a long way since the 80s (the family minivan will blow the doors off of most of the sports cars I dreamed of as a kid) I just want an original style that defines us now, instead of a sentimental look at what we used to be.

I disagree, I've ridden thousands & thousands of miles on this Clubman and it's just a fine mid-level bike. The welds on the frame are clean, the finish is good, the gearing and geometry make it a very quick bike but not very stable on fast descents. There are some aspects I'd like to change: a level top tube, lugged, quill stem and the 28H wheelset, but hey, it's a new bike so I can accept it for what it is.

Instead of just accepting it for what it is, why not revel in what it is? It's a modern Asian bike. Why pretend its an old English bike?
I'm figuring it out as I write, for me at least. The reason I love the old British stuff is that it wasn't trying to be something else, it was doing it's best to be itself. When the new Asian stuff quits trying to be old English stuff and finds it's own aesthetic then we'll have some nice new bikes.

I don't think it or they "the throwbacks" are pretending, I did at first but I've changed my mind. I convinced if Raleigh was welding (brazing) frames in England the beast wouldn't be much different. After a couple of years on the "throwback", I've found it to be just a modern bike with fenders dressed in a very subdued, traditonal paint. If your refering to the "Clubman" name...maybe, but I've never had anyone mistake it for an old Enlish bike, it looks very modern in person.

That is a fact.
I ran the assembly department of a major shop during "the boom". The expectations I had for a trained mechanic were 1/2 hour to properly assemble a Chicago made Schwinn Varsity (brake levers had to be installed & bars taped), 1 hour to assemble a Raleigh Record and a Peugeot UO-8 was often left for me to wrestle with. We dropped the Euro brand's "basic" bikes and brought in Azuki, Nishiki and Miata. Our customers were more pleased with their bikes, our DMR claims dropped to near 0 and we made more money.

I moved on to a career in Quality Control/Assurance. A well designed and managed process produces product within spec, it doesn't matter where on the planet the process runs.

"Quality isn't inspected in, it is designed in."
-W.E. Deming

who is trying to pretend it's something it's not? the rider? the company? it doesn't sound to me like Velognome was trying to say anything about his Raleigh being an english bike, and as for Raleigh itself, the only english things on that bike are the brooks and the head badge. are you implying that every company that moves it's frame manufacturing overseas should change it's branding to reflect the origin of it's welds? that's ridiculous. furthermore, many cycling companies have pretended they are something they're not for decades to follow the "hot" trends. how many companies gave themselves italian or other european names despite having no ties to europe, or even japanese names once the bike boom hit despite not being from japan.

I prefer steel frames and cannot afford the cost of new frames. Therefore I will keep the old ones
on the road as long as possible. I am not retro, I am a realist. The components on new bikes are great and I use the new technology as much as I can.
I don't like the ride of aluminum and the throwaway concept of carbon.

Cycling is a niche activity, maybe 4% of the population ride bikes, C&V is one of the smaller niches inside the cycling niche.

Is it throwback or is it something else, like a return to what works?

Steel was the material of choice up for nearly all bikes until the late-80's/early-90's. Both for professional racing as well as for utility and recreation. The divide between a PX-1 and a U-08 wasn't that great, in the grand scheme of things. They look similar and could be used for similar purposes, granted with varying degrees of success.

Then aluminum became viable and the professional racers moved towards it. At the consumer level, aluminum (like steel) is functionally quite suitable for recreational use. It is durable and resilient. The divide between the real world recreational aluminum bike and the professional racing version would be wider than before, but still easily bridgeable. Consumers go along with it.

More recently, the shift has been towards carbon fiber. Now the divide between the every day recreational CF bike and a full carbon racing bike is put in a strange relationship. While great for shaving precious micro-seconds off racing times, a full CF racing bike is a lousy choice for a casual ride around the park, getting groceries, commuting to work. Consumers go along with it until they realize that it is really silly to take their Ferrari bike on a 5 minute ride to the store. People begin to figure out that once upon a time, there was a better tool for this job and it had nothing to do with the racing world. So, now we have this recent increase in steel framed commuter bikes, that also by their inherent design don't look like war machines or space ships. I challenge you to find a Paramount or International era racing bike that is designed to look aggressive the way many modern racing bikes look.

I know that is very simplified and full of holes. But, I am not sure if the fairly recent re-discovery of steel is all about nostalgia. Some tools and materials are clearly better for certain tasks. Sometimes we (people in general) will collectively deviate from practicality in the name of fashion before returning to what works. The movement towards smaller crossover SUVs might be an example of this. Many will still argue that these cars are still ridiculously over-sized gas guzzlers. But they are still an improvement over the piggish post-9/11 H2's, Yukons and Sequoias of a few years ago.

If this is a return to elegance and practicality for America, then I welcome the change.