Pants are plural, so are shoes and socks which are all in pairs. (pants used to be in to parts, with being sewn into a single garment an innovation which came later) But a fork is singular, the same as the fork you eat with and the one you come to on the road.

As I said, it's possible that singular or plural fork(s) may be a marker separating old school from new.

BTW, your eye glass are right where you left them on the night stand. Listen to much music with headphone? When it's cold do you wear ear muff?

I could go on...

But to get back to the story...

When I cut them tines off and told my brother to fetch the fork he looked confused. So I told him to pick up the forks. He said Dale; whatcha gonna do with them there fork? I said Scuse me? He said, I mean forks. I said, Jimmy, Imma gonna hammer them there forks onto these here forks and make me a chopper. He said: I'm gonna tell mommm...

Yes you can, but it doesn't change anything. All you're doing is listing pairs of things which may be attached to each other.

But a fork is still singular. It isn't a fork until the blades (plural) are attached into a single unit. How many forks do you use to put meat into your mouth?

But feel free to have it your way.

It's more curmudgeonly that ol skool to argue semantics in the middle of a story but yeah.. have it your way too.

Me? Down tube shifters on all my geared bikes. The rest are fix gears. One of the fix gears is a custom road bike, modern ti but designed around a long road dropout so flipping the wheel is easy and fast, like it would be on a bike designed to road race as a fix gear. So it is what we might have raced in the '80s had gears and freewheels never been invented. (And it rides like a true racing bike.) My 1979 Peter Mooney is now also set up fix gear with a setup that probably was never done 100 years ago but could have been. 3 chain rings. A double cog on one side of the hub and a small single on the other. Each cog lines up with its respective chainring so I have 3 very different gears. (46-13, 44-17 and 38-21 for example.) So the routine for shifting is a little different from flipping the wheel, but I think stopping and pulling out a wrench to change gears qualifies as old school even if the details are a little different.

I'm riding clinchers now but rode sewups to '95 on the Mooney and 2000 on the fix gear. I may well go back for my good bikes (the security after high speed flats being a pretty convincing argument). All but one bike has quill stems. (And that bike will get one when the current threadless HS dies.)

I don't do this just to be "classic". My second custom has the rear brake flipped to in front of the seatstays because I always think it looks better. I have started using V-brake levers with first dual pivots, then the old Mooney's cantilevers because I find the braking better/more predictable/less exciting. (And my hands love the huge hoods which look a little prehistoric.) I ride titanium because it feels to me like a "better steel". I think I have a carbon part on one of my bikes, but I forget what. (Spacer? Bar plug?)

Oh, I learned to race reading the CONI manual and from the teachings of John Allis, the father and mentor of modern racing in New England. I still follow some of his rules. (Never got his teachings first hand, that went to the members of the Raleigh team but I raced against him and was coached on his "rules" by club vets. I always felt I was a lucky beneficiary, not just for what I learned but also that everyone in our district learned the same rules. Made close quarters racing very safe.)

Ben

How do you pluralize "forks"?

Another thing about me dealing with the old school rappers, you see a lot of humility. When you're new, nothing is wrong. Everything is tight. Because you're trying to hype the world into believing in you.
Ice T

Is being pedantic old school or is it just being a curmudgeon? Does being old school mean embracing new technology, blending old and new or firmly planting themselves in the past? IMO old school is a state of mind. Listening to opinions but choosing for yourself what is 'the best' shrugging off criticism because of what you like. I had my first road bike in 81' but I would not want it now. My daily ride and my favorite is a 17 year old steel/carbon mixed frame with new sti shifting. I have a full carbon aero wheeled blah blah blah that I have not touched in almost 2 years.

When I think "old school" it conjures up images of steel frames, friction shifters, clips and leather chamois. I don't think of myself as categorized by the term.

Man I'm 70, and started cycling back in High School, racing, Monterrey Bay Cycling Club.

I will +2 to this. KB

old school (skool) to me merely means old.

this is the way we use to do it, and we're making it work now. It's not a knock, because I'm 55 now.

who among us doesn't look back on the styles we grew up with (bikes, clothes, music, hobbies, TV shows, etc.) fondly and proudly proclaim those things as "old school"

someone said it, and I agree 1000 percent (is that possible), old school is a state of mind. Looking back and appreciating the harder and sometimes more difficult times we went through to get to the here and now

old school biking for me and those I grew up with was both utilitarian and recreational. Our bikes gave us the freedom to go where we wanted to and to visit friends and make new ones all over town. We didn't keep track of miles, didn't wear Lycra, and dam sure didn't debate the best chain lube, and say "on your left"

3 in 1 oil was good enough if we ever oiled at all. Saddle uncomfortable? Stand up and ride or coast

when we weren't traveling on the bikes we were jumping things with them or riding through things. Sometimes home made ramps, but other times potholes, logs, riding in the snow just for the heck of it

Seeing who could ride a wheelie the farthest. This was important and if you were a contender it upped your respect level in the neighborhood immensely. If you couldn't do it, you were JV all the way

riding with no hands for as far as you could

Playing bike chicken to see who had the most nerve

walking the bikes to the top of a hill and racing down

and one last thing that was the ultimate in old school biking that you don't see today. Skid marks! Purposely skidding until your tires were bald and popped

looking back it was almost like a bike Olympics, a constant competition, and for the most part, the bikes held up fine

those things are old school to me and gone too cause I don't think kids today use their bikes like we used to

Back in my day, if we made a mistake like "forks," we didn't have the entire Internet to correct us.

Holy crap! That's my childhood riding, too!

I have been mistaken for old school because I ride a Brooks B17 saddle. Happened to me last week. We were pulling into a place for a lunch break when an old school cyclist says, "nice to see another old school guy." I told him to look closer, because everything else about my attire and bike was in fact modern.

I think of old school as a constellation of things. No helmet, wool shorts and jersey, toe clips and straps, friction shifters.

It wasn't the "entire Internet".

Like many here I can't conjugate a sentence. Yet I'm still am able to understand most post. Sometimes I think I get what they're saying. Yes I sometimes type things my third grade teacher wouldn't approve of but to quote John Mellencamp "Ain't that America."

I'm 20 years older than my wife so anything I say/do is interpreted as old school by her. But the one thing I've learned is if you stick around long enough, old school becomes New School at some point. Especially in fashion,trends and work out/exercise theories.

"Even finer line between being old school and just plain old"

I'm 66, been riding for 55+ years, and all my bikes are steel.

old guys know stuff. dislike labels. this summer Daughter called me a "lightweight" (not referring to my weight). recently my hair cutter, after I had described something, she chimes in with "oh, back in the day". good grief. what makes grumpy old men? young people

Never got why black or dark socks in general became "vogue." To add the the list:

Toe clips and straps
No cycle computer or power meter (this is me)
Cycling cap with flip up bill
Wool shorts and/or jersey
Hairnet instead of helmet
Open finger gloves with the weaved tops
Regular sunglasses instead of cycling specific (a la Jan Janssen):





Edit: Misspelled Jan's last name. Forgot an extra "s." Smack thine self in the back of ye head...

Or just flip the stem on your existing non-qill stem bike?

Edit: not sure why the post I was replying to was deleted? Dangling post. Boo...

THANK YOU for the trip down memory lane. I almost forgot hammering the coaster brake and being catapulted off once. For those who ride a bent I would add riding a tonka dumptruck down a hill.

Me too but for me "old school bicycling" means no bicycle shorts and jersey regardless of material, no pedal-foot retention system, no friction shifters; no race oriented equipment on a bike meant for daily utilitarian/recreation/transportation purposes and no references to "training rides" "The Tour" or "old school bicycling."

See I still do "old school bicycling" and still enjoy it as much as I did as youngster.

Quote of the century

Benotto bar tape
Tubular strapped to the underside of the saddle with a Christophe toe strap clip
Negative angle stem
Detto leather cleats
Hairnet
Early CatEye computer that you could see from orbit
Campy Nuovo Record
Modolo brakes

Late 70s Peugeot 10-speed with a book rack, no helmet or cycle-specific clothing, and riding with no hands.

Of course, I healed a lot quicker back then.

lol.