shrtdstncrdr

I'll start off by saying I may be the definition of newb. I had a perfectly fit Univega in the nineties. A Free Spirit (I was a kid) in the eighties and a Sting Ray in the seventies. The Univega went away on the newness of an early 2000s OCR3. Quickly regretted that one. Should have kept the Univega. Later traded off a 1964 Vespa GL in parts for a Superbe which I ride as often as possible.

Oh, I also picked up a Bianchi mixte for my daughter. Strangely, it has Piaggio and Vespa stickers on it which look factory applied. Cool old bike. Works well. The seat, though vinyl, works like the well broken in Brooks on the Raleigh. Hammock-y.

When it comes to bikes I'm as dumb as a stone. I tend to see vintage bikes having level top tubes while more modern designs have degrees of slope. The old just looks better to me. Leather saddles... friction shifting. Lugs or brazing. I'm short. 5'6. Just finding a vintage (to me) that fits is a journey.

I read much more than I post as I know so little about this other than I ride because I want to.

So what defines the vintage ride for you?

Harv

mstateglfr 

Vintage bikes, to me, have the following
- level top tube
- quill stem
- bar end, downtube, stem, or bar top(mtb) shifters
- steel frame

There are obvious exceptions as some aluminum frames were around in the 80s and still fulfill the other arbitrary requirements I listed.
Or if you put brifters on a bike that meets all the other parameters.


pre 87ish, I almost always consider to be classic/vintage. 87 - 92ish I consider to be mixed, but still overwhelmingly classic/vintage. 92ish on is modern.

I just realized that 92ish on being modern in my mind is also the general time when SunTour stopped being a player for new builds and soon after shut down. Coincidence, but an interesting milestone that aligns with how I view the shift from classic to modern.

Chrome Molly 

No one line for me. I think by era, and what each one brings to mind...

wood rims and pre 50's
cotters and centerpulls
freewheels and friction - to 7 sp
cassettes and indexed dt's - alum frames
early brifters w ext routing, lugged carbon
modern to now - mono carbon, eps, etc

Maybelater

The general rule for "vintage" cars is 25 years which I also apply to bikes. In the collector car world the term "classic" is often used and abused. A beige 1987 Ford Tempo is not a classic...

Curtis Odom

I would drive my timeline stake in at 1990 with the introduction of Shimano STI. STI was a serious game changer if you were racing. I had a pre-production release group on a Schwinn Paramount OS bike that was just magical.

Italuminium

I don't know, I make up a new deadline for every new thread on the subject. Today I'm going for the dope angle, so C&V to me is anything pre the Gewiss-Ballan intro of EPO in the peloton.

due ruote 

To me, a derailleur-equipped bike isn't "vintage" unless it's friction shifting.

rootboy 

It might be different for different folks. Might depend on when you were born too. For me, I'll go with what Curtis said.

JohnDThompson 

And raked fork blades rather than straight.

randyjawa 

How many times must this question surface? Why don't we, as a group, agree on a way to define vintage? That way, we can pass on the consensus to others, and, perhaps, finalize an answer, once and for all.

I vote for 25 years old, just as is done in the vintage car world. This to me, is obvious.

Yes there are large technological changes, but so what. Indexed shifting, a big new thing - but it changed. Brifters, a big new thing. But electronic shifting has already started the change from Brifters thing to a button only thing. Does that mean we will have to assign a new criteria, once that change is accepted? Doing so does not make sense to me, but that, of course, is just me.

The Golden Boy 

I like 1993. Maybe 1994.

Whenever Suntour really stopped.

Stuff can be "classic" from any time.

For the most part- people are pretty accepting here; if I got a new bike it probably would be "classically styled," and I would have no qualms about posting and yapping about it here. I would even love to get a Rivendell or Heron and post it here. All the time.

ramzilla

In the early 90's. When Fuji sold out & production moved to Taiwan & when Suntour disappeared. Now, something like 3/4 of all bikes on the planet are being made by robots in Taiwan. It looks like mainland China is getting into the act too. Chinese steel is really pitiful stuff.

cyclotoine

seems someone asks this every other week.

RobbieTunes 

They are the future.

I like the classic lines of the older steel bikes. They just look like bikes, to me. I grew up thinking a Continental was the top of the line, and, like you, a Free Spirit was my rocket once I got off the banana bikes. I fully appreciate the technology, design, and advances of modern bikes, but they just don't bake my cookies like the older ones. When my second childhood is over, I'll probably go back to a lineup more tilted towards lugged steel bike with level top tubes, quill stems, Cinelli bars, and almost every part made of some kind of metal, using actual cables to shift and brake. That's just me.

Welcome to the forum. We see this question a lot. Doesn't mean we shouldn't answer it.

72Paramount

Has to be friction shifting or fixed gear track IMO. Has to have toe clips and straps too.

Chombi

Just looks/aesthetics mainly,
I'm sure modern bikes works better on the road. If we deny that, we are just fooling ourselves....
So, for a C&Ver that do not have to be ultimately fast and not playing fantasy Olympic hero on the roads anymore, the decades old "slow", "heavy". simple tech bikes with the small diameter, straight frame tubes and level TT's are just fine, Thank you!......

RaleighSport

Soft cut off is 1990ish for me (25 year mark) other than that.. I just go by feel, there's definitely some 90's bikes I find to be classics.

iab

Vintage < my birthday < moden

repechage

Yes, time to write that vintage lightweight bicycle reference guide.
Except, no one would buy it when one can get the information for free here.

ThermionicScott 

That's probably as universal (yet flexible) a guideline as these debates are likely to produce.

ThermionicScott 

Meanwhile, I gravitate toward bikes and parts made during the Cosby Show era (1984-1992), which is too late to be unequivocally "classic" or "vintage", yet far enough in the past not to be "modern" either. I'm comfortable with indeterminacy.

LazyLegs

A painting doesn't become a renaissance painting after 25 years, so that just seems like a dumb way to think in relation to bikes. If it's a way of classification then it becomes pretty useless if everything eventually ends up in the same classification. So it has to be set as an Era and like all Era's once its time has passed it can never be recreated. The 'Classic' era certainly ended sometime in the Mid to Late 80's, what followed is another Era that probably needs a name of it's own and was probably much shorter as it could be argued that we are in another Era again since this transitional period.

daf1009

+100

And we all have different definitions...and a lot of understanding...if it looks classic or vintage, we like to talk about it...so...who really cares?

rhm

It's not an event, but a process. Different components were affected at different times. Most of the "new developments" had already been tried out in the past. Modern means free hub and cassette; "integrated" headset; external bottom bracket; indexed shifting; and all these designs go back to the early 20th century.

jimmuller 

Any bike in which the rear brake cable disappears into a hole drilled in the TT is definitely v omdern to me regardless of its year.