IknowURider

I have a whole thread on this, feel free to stalk that. When I built this up I was like "meh, a bike company that makes transistor radios?" But I was blown away by how stable it was and how well it handles. All the parts came off my exploded Raliegh Record (another old rave thread) . Check out the RD, it's a 70's Sachs Challenger married to a cheap Sun Race freewheel. Don't beleive Shimano when they say you have to have all Shimano or it won't shift properly. This bike goes "click".

IknowURider

Randy, if I remember correctly, you had a Grand Jubilee on there, very sweet. I think you said you found it at the dump. I give this a chance rating of .00002%, but then again, because you are out there with your line in the water, the fish eventually come.

Another thing about "low grade" or "gaspipe" steel is that it can be bent back (cold set to use a gentler term) more easily than Chromoly or Manganese Moly. So you save on repair work.

One last thing: when finding a "rescue", don't instantly give up if you have hassles restoring it. Stay focused and positive. Some bikes you have to fight with a little.

One of the most memorable bikes I restored was a Raleigh Ladies single speed that I wrenched out of a CT snowbank, waiting for the dump truck Judging from the wear on the rubber pedal pads , this bike had probably been ridden for 2 or 3 generations. But a couple spokes broke, and it then started to rust in the garage.

I probably put 25 hours into it, (free labor) some touch up paint, a rear rack, and I sent it to Houston TX. My old college roomates wife. It's now retired on a Texas beach. Her two daughters ride it also.

A bike that was a survivor like that should never be dismissed or condemned.

wrk101

I guess everything is local, almost half the road bikes I find are 23 inch, I find them all of the time. Found two last week. Note, found to me = at a flippable price. If I was willing to pay full market, then I would have found a lot more. I also sold two 23 inch frame road bikes in the last week. Mine were posted on the local C/L, so if you were in my area, you would have seen them (both went for quite a bit more than $125). Now I typically do not find flippable bikes on C/L, unless I move lightning fast. The Nishiki below came from a thrift store, the Falcon came off a C/L two hours away (both ways) and the Motobecane Jubile Sport came from a garage sale.

I typically find good/very good bikes in the medium size range: anywhere from 21 inch to 23 inch. Finding high quality small bikes (19 inch frame or less), now that is challenging.

I am size agnostic. I will pick up any size road bike if it is decent and the price is attractive. Given a choice, the smaller the better, as the market responds best to small bikes.

Sold a nice 1977 23 inch Nishiki International yesterday.




Sold this really nice Falcon a couple of weeks back: all Reynolds 531C frameset.




This 1982 Motobecane was sold earlier this year.




I could post a ton more, but this gives a cross section of what I find.

khatfull

OP, first of all, please accept my apology for MY curmudgeonly response. My Google advice still holds though.

I'd add that is you're approaching 6'2" that 60-61cm frames work too. I'm 6' even and ride 59-61. The classic setup for a horizontal top tube, steel lugged bike is a fist plus a little seatpost showing and bars even with or just slightly below the saddle. Look at catalogs..."way back when" people rode larger frames.

Oh, and to your high flange comment....like these??



Beautiful International there, wow. Can I ask what you sold it for (just curious)?

EDIT: Wow, I didn't see the Falcon...beauty!!

IknowURider

This is the Raliegh Record that organ-donored the parts for the "Sonic". I cried when it died.

Total Hi- Ten so called "Crap" frame. Out of my stable of ten, this was the bike to endure the "war zones" of Hartford. Soon the SuperCourse will be carry the British torch. (sans the EU bank BS)

I love this picture.

IknowURider

Oh I know about the larger frame thing, I am riding a Motobecane Super Mirage at 62 CM and it's fine. I am actually 5 foot 11". I also rebuild smaller frames as well as larger. I think smaller ones are more popular in the market, though.


Wrk 101 : nice looking bikes, love the Falcon. I never see those here.

Puget Pounder

C'mon, we are on the internet talking to people we may never otherwise meet... not talking to our kids in person.

mazdaspeed

I dunno if I agree with all of this.

I am young (25) and have been learning from everyone on this forum for several years. In retrospect I appreciate honest opinions and harsh advice I have received from more knowledgable members, even if it was upsetting at the time.

Also, I want nothing to do with low end bikes. Never have even in the beginning. I always hear 'well let's be honest you're not gonna be fast enough for the bike to matter', if you're a motivated young male it won't take that long for you to be in good enough shape to appreciate the difference between a low end 30lb road bike shaped object and a 20lb racing bike. Deals are out there if you're patient and willing to learn so I would never suggest settling for a high ten steel bike with steel rims (unless it's a campus beater or something) after all of the bikes I've bought and flipped over the last few years. Low end bikes are less durable, much harder to resell for profit, and significantly less fun to ride IMO. I also strongly disagree with 1.) buying cheap tires and 2.) not investing in a good saddle (it is an investment).

Another piece of advice I hate is 'figure out hw to fit yourself'. Give me a freaking break. No new cyclist is going to have a clue how a bike is supposed to fit and feel. I agree that fit is extremely important but in regards to the original poster I think it's a bit absurd to say a comment like that offhand then show a picture of a bike that doesn't appear to be fit properly. One piece of good advice is that if you're an REI member ($20 one time fee iirc) they will FIT YOU FOR FREE AS MANY TIMES AS YOU WANT.

Lastly I disagree about ~58cm frames being hard to find. Seems to me that whenever I don't have extra money there are countless awesome 58cm bikes for sale. In fact, the other day I had to turn down a 531 framed trek 560 with the cast lugs and full 105 components for $200 because I need to buy expensive textbooks.

Anyhow there you have it, I've been the noob before and this is what I think.

Anonymoose

+1 in a friendly, non-curmudgeonly way.

Migraine_boy

Cool can sit around now and sing Kumbahyah ?

randyjawa 

Yup, that used to be me too. But I have leaned a thing or two over the years. Some of that high end stuff is pretty high, in my opinion. Some of the nicest rides I have experienced are on lower quality bicycles, including this Dump found Legnano and this found at the same Dump Motebecane Grand Jubilee.

And one of the nicest riding bikes of all that I have owned, and I have owned quite a few very high end vintage mounts, is the Carbolite 103 Peugeot Course, the one made in Canada.



So, I am interested in giving just about anything a try these days. You never know when you will learn something truly valuable, in spite of all the hype.

Of course, that is just my take on the subject.

khatfull

I don't think it's as hard as you think.

General convention says that on the downstroke your knee should be between 15 and 30 degrees bent. This is where I start. Personally, I'm a masher so I'm usually more to the 15 degree end of the range. You should be able to adjust the seatpost/saddle to get into that range. If not, the frame is the wrong size for you.

Past that, reach and drop are really very personal and your body will tell you what's right. You need to take longer rides to do this, > 30 or so miles so. If you can go 30 miles and feel really good you're getting close. If you can't there's something not right. Move around on the bars and get an idea for what you need, more or less drop, more or less reach...you might have to raise or lower a stem, or replace one to fix reach.

Your body gives you the best feedback regardless of what some internet pundit or fit calculator might tell you. Trust it.

mazdaspeed

I thought I had my fit figured out. I could ride 50+ miles and feel OK, 30 miles was never a problem. Turns out my saddle was too far back, reach was way too short. Now that I have everything sorted out I'm ridiculously comfortable (all day comfortable with no soreness at all besides my legs) and significantly faster. Sometimes it's hard to know what's really going on. I've taked to a fitter and apparently it's common for people that fit themselves to have too little reach because the correct reach feels bad at first since, as a beginning cyclist, you're not used to using your core and back to hold up your torso, so your back will get really sore for the first week or two of riding a properly fitted bike.

My point is that it's easier said than done and from my (young person's) perspective, the older more experienced riders make fitting sound like an easy process since they are used to it, when in reality it's much easier to just get expert help in person than to screw around for years. There are a lot of people that think their bikes fit them right and they are way off.

lotek 

The guy I've used for fitting measures the angle at the knee with your leg extended towards 5:00 on the crank.
it's actually a bit farther to reach than the 6:00 position.
As for what Mazda said, hell I rode a 53/54cm frame for ages until I got on
my 55cm Zieleman and loved it, then found a 56cm was even better, yes more stretched out.
I'm a bit past my frame size in age and still haven't stopped learning.

marty

Spoonrobot 

Dave Moulton has some excellent articles on bicycle fit for the other young dudes out there. They helped me fit myself pretty well so far.

https://davesbikeblog.squarespace.com...egory/bike-fit

I will say that vintage frames and bicycles around here are getting harder to find and snapped up much faster than before. A lot of this appears to be flippers and eBay sellers.

orangeology

youngsters and oldsters: not so idealistically humane division of groups, i guess?
there's slight difference between "newbie vs the seasoned" and "young and old",
and considering them as one thing is a very common mistakenly first step of how to see the focus.

respectively, this is the best place to get together on one love — in whole lot different form of interests — and sometimes the mood gets hostile only because of the perceptive 'division'.

as a newbie, not so a youngster tho, i just love this forum, especially namely C&V. amazing to see the depth and the generosity that i see from you 'experts', being still afraid of asking anything around franken-bike other than strict restoration of a vintage road racer. don't know why, would just feel guilty planning to build a single speedie out of a bianchi rodie...

thanks for threads.

photogravity

WTH? I must be missing something here.

lostarchitect 

Yes, a piece of musical history.

auchencrow

Interesting input from all quadrants here.
...My advice to newbies:

• Accept curmudgeonly advice FWIW. (It's often worth a lot.)
• Ignore all the antipodal advice on fit. (Especially LBS advice.)
• Don't be dismissive of high-ten bikes (but upgrade asap to alloy wheels.)
• Resist the urge to repaint. (It robs value.)
• Educate yourself,then when you see a good deal, pounce on it!
• Your grease is likely as vintage as your bike, so service your hubs and bb before you destroy them.
• Always ride on good rubber.
• Read Sheldon Brown, My Ten Speeds, and Park Tool's repair help.
• Hang out here.

rootboy 

and...

take the bad with the good. There's both here, as everywhere in life. Absorb what you want. Flush the rest.

-holiday76

listen, just read what you read here, take it all with a grain of salt, then go learn on your own. make your own mistakes and form your own beliefs. come back when you have a specific question , get 10 different answers and figure out which one works for you. over time you'll learn if you do this enough and then eventually you'll be the old, grouchy, ******* answering the questions.

IknowURider

+1. I have flipped two of these at 23" because they don't fit. But Sometime, I'll try a 62 CM and see what happens. There's something about the UO-8 that draws you in, can't explain. And they are everywhere, crying out "set me free!" (the recipients have reported good results)

IknowURider

+2 in a friendly way as well. If you haul azz like you say and are so dedicated, and have the miles to log, then go for it. I am a college grad as well, been there...

sillygolem

Mostly this is to keep people new to collecting from spending way too much on a completely average bike. There are plenty of people who know nothing about bikes selling them and thinking because the name is either unheard of or very common it's worth a LOT of money. This seems to have gotten worse now that people have seen American Pickers and claim the "picker" title thinking anything they sell was built by Space Jesus and hand delivered by James Bond. Look at the "It came from eBay/Craigslist" post sometime.

IknowURider

Dave Moulton is GOD. Best blogger on the 'net. I totally want a Fuso.

The funniest thing though, is he is a vintage racer still trying to figure out how to ride in traffic and on Charleston Bike paths. And he contributes to advocacy, something that a lot of drop-bar heads don't bother with. Kudos that.

I assume you know his childhood issues as well. Hardcore, but he is a survivor. It cracks me up though, just a little sometimes. In retirement the dude buys a frame he built himself off ebay. Precious!