ohjonnybegoode

I'll be 42 in a few weeks...growing up, my grandfather had a Kool Yellow Schwinn Le Tour sitting on his front porch...never saw him ride it. He passed away when I was 12, and soon after, I was finally tall enough to ride it...rode it all through high school, until I smacked into a pickup truck and bent the fork and steerer tube all to hell and threw the bike out.

A couple of years later I was in college and got the itch to ride again, and my then girlfriend now wife gave me $$$ on my birthday to buy a new bike. Knowing nothing except Schwinn because of the Le Tour, I went to the Schwinn dealer in my area (still open today) and bought a new World Sport in 1990. I think I rode it twice and put it in my mom's garage, where it sat until about four years ago.

The company I worked for sponsored a bike team to ride in the local ACS Bike A Thon. I dusted off the old WS, got new tires and tuned it, and rode it in the bikeathon...which started my love of bike riding all over again.

I soon found this forum, where I have spent hours reading and learning (and learning). There's just something about the vintage steel that appeals to me...especially because the riding I do is purely recreational.

I once had a collection of about 10, but paired it down to four...my WS, (which I'll always keep for sentimental reasons), a Davidson Impulse, a Gitane Tour de France finished in Jesolo bike team colors, and a '73 Kool Yellow Schwinn Super Sport, which I bought in honor of my grandfather's Le Tour...that one's a keeper too...

Scooper

I'll be 72 next month, but in this area I see lots of guys and gals in their twenties on really nice vintage lugged steel road bikes with down tube shifters that look well maintained. Many are bike commuters, and any weekday the bike lanes on Market Street are packed during the rush hours. They get to work faster on a bike than they could driving or taking public transportation, and a lot of the tech companies let their employees park their bikes in their offices or workstations.

motochick 

I'm female, so not a boy....I started riding in 1984 when I was 13 on my dad's '60's ?? Peugeot. At 16 I got an '87 Schwinn Tempo. My current rides are an '85 Peugeot PSN-10 and an '88 Trek 400, both converted to 650b and both sporting DT shifters and wheels built by me. I am also heavy into classic cars, owning 3. I am now 43 and ride with a bunch of old guys who all sport newer aluminum bikes with brifters and 23mm tires.....they think I am weird. I like bikes from the era I grew up riding in.

Brenda

rootboy 

Some of us like classic cars too, Brenda. Let's see some pics, please.

motochick 

The '67 RS has been in my family since it was brand new, it was the car my mom drove me to school in. Hard to think of it as classic. The '57 Bel Air was my hubby's first car (in 1987) and was the car we grew up in. Again, hard to think of it as classic. We bought the '64 Nova recently, specifically because it was a four door, it is still being built up. It will be back to its original color white when it is done. We like our cars to look original but they have modern brakes, suspension, radios, etc. The Nova now sports the same big tires as the Camaro, no pics tho.

rootboy 

WOO! NICE. Thanks. My dad had the same Belair he bought new. Great cars, Motochick.

Chombi

I was 45 not sooo long ago....then I stopped counting/aging....... I wish my knees,....and Heck!, the rest of my body were on the same program as my brain.....

rootboy 

You said it Chombi. My brain still thinks it's 29. But my body reminds it otherwise.

Pars 

As others have mentioned, I was pleasantly surprised to see so many younger people post in this thread.

I just turned 60 last week. Up until a year and a half ago, I only had one bike, a '73 Raleigh I had bought new in '74. I had only owned 2 other bikes, the '73 Raleigh International that I used the parts from for my current one, and a '72 Schwinn.

When I started back into riding 5 or so years ago (other than little rides occasionally in the past), I was just trying to get into better shape. I realized that my bike, which was a pro level bike in its day, was more bike than I would ever be able to eclipse, so it seemed silly to spend $$$ buying a new one. The Campy stuff on the Raleigh never breaks, is easy to work on with a simple assortment of tools, and works just fine for my needs. I do aspire to own an Italian '80s or '90s steel bike, but don't know if I ever will. Still a great forum to hang out on though and read all the interesting stories of others, not to mention getting to go on a forum-member organized ride occasionally.

Bandera

It seems that a good bit of my kit is Classic by attrition, bought "back when" for a specific purpose and still in service today.
Quality matters.

-Bandera

jimmuller 

I'm not Brenda, but here ya' go:

rootboy 

Jim, did you paint the Masi to match the Triumph? Or other way around? Two nice machines.

Zaphod Beeblebrox 

I'm 33 now. I caught the bug in like '07 when i bought a 70's Super Course as a commuter. Its gone completely pear shaped from there…there's like 20 bikes in my house. My tastes have refined over my time here (read: I became a bike snob) and i'm significantly more jaded and apathetic….but now i get where the old guys are coming from when they rolled their eyes at some of my ill advised money pits i've tarted up over the years.

Its fun to read this thread, looking at join dates along with ages. Some of you know I've been here since '07 and changed usernames a few times…which is why my join date reads '09. Its neat to see that more than a few of you guys are around my age and joined up here around the same time. I didn't always know i had so many contemporaries here, and its never mattered, but its kinda neat to know that many of us have had some big life experiences in our tenure here and more than a few have started families.

jimmuller 

You get to ask only one question. That's two. The answer is yes. Actually, no. And thank you. Actually I painted it to match my neighbor's Honda Elephant in the background. Can't have enough red, you know.

Sir_Name 

I'm a month shy of 31 and would be hard pressed to choose between these beauties! If the Masi came with the Triumph I may be swayed...

I've been on bikes since I can remember for all intents and purposes. My...interest...really got going with BMX dirt jumping and an abandoned lot at the end of my street. The jumps grew as I did (maxing out at my current height long before me). I still have my ultimate BMX from that time period (XL Giant MOSH with an S&M front end I added along with the wheels and drivetrain). At the same time (and quite a bit before, actualy) my parents each had 10 speeds which I would ride to go fast. Gas pipe, turkey levers, cottered, and with stem shifters if I remember correctly. An absolute blast. They were blue, maybe Raleigh. [I hope current parents let their kids ride their CF machines] Quiet rural CT was great for growing up on two wheels.

My attention stalled a bit in HS and college, so I never got into formal racing. At that time I was busy studying music and engineering. Toward the end of my undergrad my then girlfriend and I decided to pick up biking for fitness. My dad gave me his ~90 Rockhopper which is still going strong, of course (with me). Next was a Centurion Pro Tour 15. The previous owner had tweaked the frame just a bit, so I ran it without the granny gear. Finding a quality (Tange Champion II, chrome under the champagne paint) bike which fit with nice Japanese alloy components and toe clips was a revelation. My memories of that bike are sentimental. Unfortunately while I was riding some single track a few summers back my RD dropped a pulley wheel and ate the chain, pulling it into and bending the stays. I still have the bike sans wheel set and hope to get the frame repaired and build a steel canti', modest clearance gravel grinder some day (at least one chainstay will need to be replaced due to wear from the previous owner plus my contribution. I'm lucky to have broken down the way I did, honestly. I like speed). She completed the Five Borough Bike Tour a few years back like a champ.

After the depression wore off from wrecking the Centurion I found a great deal on a mostly-full 10sp Dura Ace '07 CAAD 9 which has shown up here once or twice (her name is Candice and I don't care if it's lame to name her and tell... Get the name??). Not C&V, but she goes like stink!!! I do have a leather saddle and cotton tape installed. I also have what seems to be a mid-tier Windsor from the early/mid-80s that I grabbed a year before the C'dale. That one may turn into a light touring rig / grocery-getter. Last summer the generous Local Bike Shop (from which the ~90 Rockhopper was purchased, incidentally) gifted me a pristine Motobecane Grand Touring in gold. Someone dropped it off for scrap. 1980 from what I can tell without doing any actual research on the matter (that's the only year with stem shifters if I understand it correctly). The frame is a bit too small for me if drops are used, and a mid-geared double isn't really a touring bike In My Opinion, so that one has Soma Sparrow bars and a different stem installed plus new brake levers and cork grips. Once I get the spindle length right then build the wheels (my first) it will be a single speed upright cruiser. Coasting on the chassis feels great. 27" concave Weinmann rims are something else.

Finally, I have the Colnago which is slowly coming together. I'm close and can't wait.

There will be others. I picked up a Schwinn Suburan for my Lady last winter which now has a basket and friction thumbies per her request. My close friend has some IGH bikes and skip-tooth Columbias which I'm attracted to... He also has a gorgeous Flandria, Atala, Trek, Shogun(s), late '90s C'dale, Columbia Gaucho and other banana seat'ers, tandem, Trek MTB, and on... Then there are the flippers.

Sorry for the memoir, but you asked!

Sir_Name 

DON'T PANIC.

Good man.

oddjob2

I think The Henry Ford should pick this car collection up lock, stock, and barrel
https://www.usatoday.com/media/cinematic/video/82069900/

Bicyclz

Me too: )
Maybe it's just good taste?

since6

While I mostly ride my Custom Stevenson Single and together our Custom Stevenson Tandem, steel both, I do rotate in my vintage bikes. First enough to get the fitment right, "thou shalt not trifle with old joints", and then give one a once a week ride.

This both makes me appreciate my modern steel bikes and has given me moments to recall days of youth.

I also restore and give family members, grandchildren first bikes, all vintage. There is no greater joy than a child's face when they see their bike.

Plan as I age out to pass them all on to be ridden.

Darth Lefty 

I'm 42 this year. I first joined up on Bike Forums because I was cleaning up and servicing my Dad's Paramount.I went through a phase where I was trolling CL daily for cool old road bikes, and I've had a few more "C&V" rides in the meanwhile. But right now I like modern bikes better... right now... subject to change.

ryansu

I am 55 but as a kid my folks gave me a Huffy 10 speed that did NOT inspire my C&V interests, quite the opposite as I only rode it a handful of times. In my 30s a friend got me into biking and I rode a brifter Cannondale for a decade. Ironically it was my brifters breaking for the 3rd time in a decade that made me think, there must be a better way, that led me to bar cons and to dt shifters and indirectly to Rivs and I really liked the look of lugs and finally I rode a steel bike on my crumbling local roads and had an epiphany. I was starting to do more of my own maintenance and decided to rebuild a old varsity as a lark. When I realized that even someone of my limited mechanical abilities could work on old steel I was hooked, it also felt good making something neglected useful again.

Interestingly most of my refurbs have gone to younger folks although I think that is as much as an economic decision (inexpensive) as an appreciation of style although I did have one winsome young lass tell me the Peugeot UO-10 I had refurbed and was selling was Sick

greg3rd48 

I am 41 and got into C&V five years ago when my wife was pregnant with our first child. I always enjoyed tinkering with and working on things in addition to cycling and all things French so when a neglected, beat up U08 frame appeared on CL I decided to pick it up and try to bring it back to life. I did and went down the rabbit hole. That bike and probably 2 dozen bikes have since come and gone while I gained some wrenching prowess. I still have a stable of 6 (one non C&V) with one project in the works. I honestly was drawn to the aesthetics and story behind these bikes which were often older than I. I enjoy my carbon racer also but my commuting and 3/4 of rides are done on vintage steel.

seedsbelize 

I'm 67 and bought my last new bike in '95. My current newest bike is a '92.

hokiefyd 

I'm 40 and just enjoy making things work well again. Mechanical rehabilitation, I guess. I'm a history buff and, though the C&V I have aren't "historic", it is consistent with the way I envision myself in an older scene or environment. There are few opportunities to really live history. For me, it's fun to get my 50-year old Peugeot out and ride it, knowing that, for the most part, this is exactly like what my parents or grandparents would have ridden.

I'm a car guy at heart, but any sort of wrench-turning is therapy for me. Bikes are much easier to procure and maintain than cars, and they take up much less space, so old bikes have become sort of a hobby for me. But I also have some newer bikes, two with hydraulic disc brakes. (That presents a different opportunity -- to compare what was back in the day with what we have today, and see the things that have advance and the things that haven't.)

TriBiker19 

I'm 42 and female. When I started riding 80s bikes in the early 90s, they weren't vintage. But...we all get older, right?