that riding an "old" bike can be pretty nice.

(This is NOT a retro-grouch-rant, I own/use/enjoy modern equipment quite a bit)

Maybe the thread with the 1980s pictures got to me but I took out my 80s vintage Basso for a ride a few hours ago. Columbus steel, Campy Super Record, sew-ups and the bike sang me a sweet song.

Well tuned friction shifters ain't bad and even mid-quality sew-ups ride nicely enough for me.

At one point I crossed ways with a guy driving a 1972ish Monte Carlo that looks as if it's been well maintained if not really restored and it occurred to me that me and that guy were doing something pretty similar. Riding (or driving) something that we really liked back in the day and though my Basso and his Monte Carlo both show their age and don't stack up against the newest all that well I'll bet we were both having fun. I was.

Tomorrow morning I'll be riding with people who are faster tha me and I'll be clicking Ergo shifters ands spinning CF cranks ......and still getting dropped.

Nice!
...but how do you pedal?

The pic is not exactly current. It has, appropriately I feel, 1st generation Look pedals on it. I do have the Campy SL pedals with clips but I have not gotten nostalgic enough to forget how much I disliked clips and straps back when they were the only option.

is that a straight block? extra htfu points.

But he lives in Florida.

How the bloody hell do you reach the brake levers?

We did a loop around White Rock Lake today- I was on the Schwinn Heavy Duty, daughter was on the Free Spirit 3-speed- it was likely the oldest bike out there at the time.

Yes.

True. No htfu points for me. (Can I have half credit please?)


??? They're set at a comfortable reach for me.

I can't get nostalgic about bicycles from the 70's. I grew up with them. They sucked. Hard.

Perhaps, Pcad it was you that sucked hard back in the '70's...

Yes...
Sometimes it is easy to forget.

I can't remember the 70's, except that I do recall the bicycles sucked.

Walter:

Great bike. I just gave away my last custom race bike to a neighbor who wants to start triathlon. He ran cross country for a "final 4" NCAA champ team and needed a bike. I figured it was in good hands.

I took it for one last ride. Problem is, I kept trying to flick the brake lever to change gears...

Hang on to that beauty.

I did that alot yesterday.

Thanks for the compliments. Yep, she's a keeper.

And if anyone is keeping score....I got dropped today, big time.

With the exception of clips and straps I'm not sure I agree with you. The market was inundated with literally millions of bike boom "10 speeds" but the high end ones were/are pretty nice.

Of course alot of 1970s parents thought a Schwinn Continental was "high end."

Getting those tanks even over South Florida overpasses would earn you some HTFU points; if there had been HTFU points back then.

Besides, my bike is from the early 80s.

I'd rather ride that over of most of these blacked out carbon fiber bikes with billboard wheels and $400 brifters I see on here.

Nice!

I have an 84 trek 760 that I built up with some 10 speed campy bits. I love it. I raced it. And I placed on it.

That bike has 5 years on me. Heh.

I remember the first time I got on a bicycle that I consider closer to today's bikes than those of the 70's. It was a 1989 Trek with a CF front triangle, fork, and aluminum lugs and rear stays. It was a complete and utter revelation compared to anything I had ever ridden in the past. After that I had another Trek with CF rear stays, then Ti, then more Ti, now I have CF/alu again (the Six13) and soon I'll have a full CF (the Cervelo). Today's bicycles really are so much better than the ones I rode in my teens and twenties it's rather amazing in retrospect. The frames and the componentry.

I can get somewhat nostalgic about Schwinn Sting Rays, but not racing bikes from 20-30 yeas ago.

I think of them like sports cars. An old classic is just as much fun and sometimes more than new. They certainly are more svelte, colorful, and shiny.

One of my favorite bikes is a 1960's Raleigh, made in the Nottingham factory. Still a great ride.

I remember those. All of those different materials blended together made me nervous. Thing is, as I recall, they weighed about the same as a Columbus SLX or Reynolds 753 frameset. But different strokes and, as I initially stated, I'm not retro-grouching.

I never got into those. I went to "10 Speeds" (road bikes in modern lingo) when I was 12 or 13 and never really cared for the BMX bikes that evolved out of those "choppers" either.

There is something about the thinner diameter frame tubes and stems...