Retrogrouch?
well you could peruse the Classic Rendezvous list archives and
get a feel for "grouchiness", or even our own
Classic & Vintage (cranky & vintage?) forum for a few ideas.
Personally I don't think I need more than 8 cogs in the back
so that puts me squarely stuck in the 90's eh? not so grouchy.
I prefer the super record or nuovo record gruppos and the
ability to mix and match componentry (and manufacturers).
the most "modern" thing I have on any of my bikes
is a Fizik Aliante saddle which I picked up to see what
all the hype was about. Nice saddle but for long rides
I prefer my B17 or Team Pro.

marty

My roadie is a WSD, and I had no idea about women's specific bikes until I started shopping around and test-riding. I had a horror of getting stuck with one of these when what I wanted was more like this. I had no idea that they made "normal looking" women's bikes nowadays. The last thing I wanted was some piece-of-crap pink "powder puff" girly bike. I wanted a serious bike for hauling ass. Which is ultimately what I got. Turns out that since I'm short and have a small frame (narrow shoulders) finding a men's bike that I could ride without feeling like I was steering with a laundry basket was just not happening. I test rode the Burley, and it was love right away. Ladies bikes have come a long way.

It wasn't until I had my Burley that I would have even considered touching a stereotypical "ladies" step-thru with a 10' pole. I ride my Schwinn for its nostalgic, retrogrouch value, and because it is a surprisingly great ride. Sure it weighs 40lb and the seat is horrible and squeaky, but the old friction-shifter does its job quite adequately and without ado, and once you get this beast rolling, it rides along quite handily. I ride my Burley because I like to go fast and hotrod around. Different tools for different jobs, you know!

:beer: x 2

I would take an old Schwinn or Peugeot over any K2-Orbea-CarbonFib-Cervelo
type bike on any day !

I don't think "outmoded" is quite the right descriptor.

It is bemusing to me to meet people of apparently normal intelligence who have convinced themselves that they are too stupid to be able to learn to operate an ordinary bicycle.

Sort of like the folks who imagine that there's something intellectually challenging about operating a VCR.

These people believe themselves to be to stupid to be able to learn to use common consumer products, but that doesn't stop them from using computers and driving automobiles!

Sheldon "Not Rocket Science" Brown

a retrogrouch is someone who embraces old technology in lieu of the cutting edge in any field, and is stoically gruff about change.

A penchant for wooden boats, steel bikes, turntables, Stromburg carbs. Same fidget, different applications.

They could just be cheap bastards too.


Now, for those of you who haven't tried wool cycling shorts yet....

As an IT pro, I guess being a retrogrouch is part of the territory. Are YOU willing to risk migrating 2000 users and a couple hundred servers to the latest version of Windows when it first comes out? LOL, Not me pal! I bet even Sheldon "I ain't no techie" Brown would flinch at being an 'early adopter' in that case!

Whoa whoa whoa.....this thread got off to bad bad start. Shifters? We don't need to stinkin' shifters! Be they down tube, barcons, thumbies, twistgrips *shudders*, they're just added weight when you're only using one ring in the front and one in the back.

Actually to keep this thread from getting moved to the singlespeed forum, I'll just add that I use a downtube shifter for the front and an STI lever for the rear. I like being able to use friction to trim in the front. Much more intuitive. There's not much retro about this setup, in fact it even qualifies as a racing novelty. But I think I'm with Sheldon in terms of weeding through the new. My Canon FTb and iPod mini rarely leave my side.

Fo Sho, i one wants to be proper and uberretro a SS or better yet FG is the way to go. Unfortunately i am not yet such a powerfull cyclist for FG to be a realistic option if i am to continue cycling at my current level. But perhaps one fine day...

Umm, when did wooden boats become cheap? When did boats become cheap? I think wooden sailboats might be the least cost effective things on the planet.

The distant past is often wistfully revered as the golden times of years gone by
As the future is waited upon with the hope of treasures that will enhance our lives...
But neither of these places will I go, as I have now come to realize,
That by the time I get there, the present will most certainly have arrived!

-James E. Barron III
writer,artist,thinker,cyclist

Retrogrouch, one who waits 5 years to see if the new fangled stuff will last.
Just this fall I finally building up a 8/9 speed bike, if I cant find 9 speed downtube shifters it will be an 8.
If 6 speed Uniglide was all that was available I wouldn't mind.

Slightly OT, courtesy of Monty Python:


FIRST YORKSHIREMAN: Aye, very passable, that, very passable bit of risotto.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN: Nothing like a good glass of Château de Chasselas, eh, Josiah?

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN: You're right there, Obadiah.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN: Who'd have thought thirty year ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Château de Chasselas, eh?

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN: In them days we was glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN: A cup o' cold tea.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN: Without milk or sugar.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN: Or tea.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN: In a cracked cup, an' all.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN: Oh, we never had a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN: The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN: Because we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness, son".

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN: Aye, 'e was right.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN: Aye, 'e was.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN: I was happier then and I had nothin'. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN: House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN: Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in t' corridor!

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN: Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN: Well, when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN: We were evicted from our 'ole in the ground; we 'ad to go and live in a lake.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN: You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us living in t' shoebox in t' middle o' road.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN: Cardboard box?

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN: Aye.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN: Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN: And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.

ALL: They won't!