I can see the nostalgia aspect of an old bike to ride over to the store or a restaurant, but bikes in general just keep getting better and better from a performance point of view. When I buy a new bike, it is because it is noticeably better than what it replaced. My Specialized Stumpie Evo Carbon whatever kills my GT Zaskar and my Roubaix SL4 Disc Pro whatever kills my Fuji Gran Fondo. Both perform better in every way and are about 4-5 years apart in age. My 2014 Stumpie is amazingly different than my 84 Stumpie.

So, other than memories, why all of the attention on old bikes? And, for later, why on earth does Specialized feel the need for so much whatever to follow each name???

This is sincere curiosity, so please leave insincere responses until later

That's cool that you like your new Stumpy Evo Carbon. My '88 Stumpy Comp makes a great commuter; my '91 Team Stumpy makes a great gravel bike. I rode the Stumpy Comp 28 miles yesterday because it has fenders. The MUP still had some snow and it was in pretty bad shape. The 26 x 2.0 continental winter contact tires handled the road conditions well and the fenders kept me clean:



By the way, given how badly your '84 Stumpy is performing, you could pass it on to me since I like repurposing badly performing old bikes,

My question remains, what is it that draws you to vintage in place of newer stuff? What is it that you like better? One of my car buddies who has an amazing Chevelle and I have a modern versus classic debate that has gone on for years. In cars I can kind of see it, bikes have me a little stumped.

Old stuff is still good, maybe not for the purpose it was originally intended, but sometimes that works too. I'd love to find a late 80's Trek 520 touring frame to build into a touring bike.

I paid $125 for the 1988 Stumpjumper Comp with a full deore xt group. I'm not going to find a better commuter than that at that price. Old bikes rock for commuters that you lock up outside.

The 1991 Team Stumpjumper was my offroad bike back in the day. I paid big bucks for it. I thought about buying a new gravel bike and then I said to heck with it and repurposed the Team with trekking bars. That's a reasonably light bike with tange prestige tubing. The grease guard group has held up and is really easy to service.

As post no. 4 points out, there is not a heck of a lot of difference between new and old touring bikes.

You can keep repeating the same question if you like but there are uses for old bikes and the advantage of a new bike is not always that clear (as with touring bikes). Plus they can be cheap and some people like that. If buying new bikes every few years makes you happy, go for it.

yesterday i rode my 10 pound carbon wundercycle, today a 17 pound '79 trek touring bike. i look forward to riding both of them.

it's possible that one's age is a factor in understanding the tendency. after all, memories take time to mature.

My 10 - 20 year old Hardrock is still a great ride for me, and probably a better bike than I am rider.

I have 2 winter commuter bikes, subjected to rain, salt, mud and sand. They take a beating so my newer bikes still look good. Also ever seen an old carbon bike? My steel ones still look good after 10 and 20 years. Plus 2 girls in college. I don't have a road bike pe rse, more commuters and mt bikes. There are other factors besides performance sometimes. I don't race either. YRMV

Price has a lot to do with it for me. Old good quality rigid steel MTB's from the nineties make very good commuter bikes . With all the winter salting here they will not last very long so I will not spend a lot on the bikes I use during winter. A modern bike costing the same as the old one is heavier and much less fun to ride. One will have to be able to wrench for this to make sense though.
I will however stubbornly insist that my 87 Team Miyata is a really good bike for a 4 hour ride on bad tarmac regardless of age !

It is not that I'm particularly drawn to "Vintage".

Somehow I became Vintage.
And my bicycle became vintage with me


Now I'm just stuck with piles of old stuff.

Thanks everyone, some of that is making sense to me. One thing that still has me a little is that there seems to be a lot more "talk" about the older/vintage bikes and not much talk about the new/cutting edge stuff.

Old bike is usually cheaper. Newer bikes' aesthetics does not appeal to everyone. People finally have cash to buy the mythical 1000$ steel bike they always wanted as a kid.

Truth be told, the de minimis improvements made over the last century with the standard "safety" bike aren't enough for me to get excited about. The extra few seconds over 40k between a "vintage" lightweight and an all new super-duper-carbon ultrabike are only of interest if :
1. You're racing, and;
2. You're stuck with UCI rules for the race you're in.

Wanna go fast? Get a velomobile.

One thing you can do with the old stuff that isn't remotely possible with new is put together fine rides for small sums of money. My latest is a ~40 yo Reynolds 531 frame purchased for $80 with s $30 FW, say $20 in derailleurs and shifters, $35 in brakes. The ride? Like a racing bike of many years ago, designed to reign supreme on rough roads, with or without pavement.

Yeah, I could get a Surley, 9-10 speed cassette and wheels, etc and get to about the same place for only about $800. (And have a desirable, hi-theft item). Nobody will notice my beat up frame.)

I don't do old just because it is old. But good doesn't get old. It stays good. And good bikes have been made for over a century.

Ben

I have a vintage bike due to $$$. I bought a entire touring bike and did a small amount of work to it price wise would equal what a set of new shifters would cost for a newer bike.

age does that to you. lot's of free time to reminisce.

i remember my very old grandfather going on and on about the Wilson administration. nobody listened to him anymore, not a surprise i guess. everybody that lived during the Wilson administration, except him, was dead.

some day you'll look back on your old bike or car or political system () and forget that they don't compare favorably with what's available at the moment, and it won't make any difference to you.

I think there is a mix of new and old on the internet websites.

I have friction shifters because they're what my bike came with, and what I have.

Most new "high-end" bikes are coming out with "brifters", and that seems to be the expected standard. Hopefully I'll get some setup soon.

Newer isn't always better. On another website, there was a discussion about how long cable housings should last. My thoughts was somewhere around 30 years or so. But, apparently the newer, more expensive housings are wearing out in less than a year. I suppose that is progress if one lives in a disposable world. Many of the new parts are lighter because they are half plastic. I just have to wonder.

The only problem I have ever had with my downtube shifters is too much drilling weakened them. I put on stock levers (somehow managing to get two lefts, and no rights), and they have worked fine ever since. How many of the brifters will still be functional after 30 to 40 years?

People like different things for different reasons. I like my modern carbon bikes for the type of riding I currently do,which are fast 65-70 mile exercise rides. I like my 20 year old aluminum Cannondale hardtail mountain bike because I paid almost $1400 for it new, but when I thought about selling it, I could not bring myself to sell it for the $400 offered for it. So, I decided to keep it and turned it into a slow beach cruiser.

I am like you, in that I'll never buy anything less than the latest technology in most things, but I still find myself admiring old steel bikes when I see them on my rides.Part of it is that aesthetically, they can be very pretty (Saw a beautiful Richard Sachs road bike the other day, and everything about it just screamed beautiful, including the baby blue and cream colors and the wool retro long-sleeved jersey of the rider), and also that the bikes I liked but could not afford when I was a poor college student were those steelies with italian names.

Its the paint and decoration that I like on old bikes. Amazing how well the paint on the old bikes stand up.to time and the elements. Flambouyant paint colors, metallics, pearl. They're what attracts me. And super slender cottered cranks, and chrome. Love the chrome.

DT friction and ratchet shifters. Old, bygone technology that requires skill. Who needs that? They interchange with every derailleur and every freewheel and cassette. They are light. They do not get damaged and work, virtually guaranteed after every crash and bike tip-over, no matter how minor or severe. The scrapes on the old Campy Record levers used to be a badge of honor.

Now, modern bikes do not crash or fall over, and proprietary systems are SO much better for everybody (and require so much less skill to operate) that clearly those dinosaur era DT shifters should be tossed out. (Or just send them to this dinosaur that has it somewhere in his DNA the skill to operate them.)

This dinosaur has been known to crash. Multi-hundred dollar spills, just to keep the bike operating, isn't in his budget. But if I upgrade to this new technology, crashes don't happen, right?

Ben

There was a Klein in the 80's that had a wild paint job, and I would buy one of those if I ran across one.

This Global Cycling Network video does a nice job of looking at the question.

They did well riding together. I can't say the old bike was that much worse than the new bike. A few little things.they picked up on. Sitting to shift, etc. More relaxed gearing on the new bikes (which can be changed).

I need to find my "Skid-Lid". It took lots of years of abuse. I don't know if I ever crashed in it, but they weren't made to be one bump and done..

That because the Skid-Lid shared more in common with the leather hairnet in the video. They weren't meant to absorb impact but served more as a place to hold the shattered pieces of your skull so that clean up was easier

I already own the vintage stuff, and it still works fine. And bikes last longer than cars.