70sSanO

Considering the bikes listed in my signature I find it quite ironic that you included me in your response. But since you did...

There is a BF sub-forum that is very active, it is called Classic & Vintage. What a poetic phrase to describe old, and generally used, stuff. I don't recall previous generations having the same infatuation as my generation. My generation will pay tens of thousands of dollars for old guitars, and hundreds of thousands of dollars for old cars just to be able to grasp the past and hold onto something you can't get anymore. Display them, talk about them, obsess over them; it is almost a religious experience. But the acronym above all acronyms is NOS. It's like Raiders of the Lost Ark when the box is opened, don't look, keep your eyes shut.

Actually what you don't want to look at is the price for that old part. That has made us the fools. "They" have been around since the industrial revolution and have provided more conveniences and improved our lives beyond measure. They haven't fooled us, we merely fool ourselves.

The most hilarious part of the old vs. new is the original Shimano SIS. Shimano destroyed its competitors and captured the market and none of the other early systems from competitors came close. And they did it with such an obscure approach. Rather than precision, Shimano built slop into their system. The Centeron guide pulley floated enough and the cog spacing was wide enough that it worked flawlessly even if the shifters were not quite as flawless. And even I have posted that the greatest RD Shimano made was the first generation XTR. What an idiot.

I ride old stuff because the riding level to which I have descended to is commensurate with the level of technology required. That, and I've owned the stuff for long enough that it is now cheap. I own no "Old Guys Rule" shirts and have no desire to push archaic ideas to a younger generation that certainly doesn't need to hear them. And what I love seeing when I'm riding is an old guy on a new bike; hopefully one day...

John

rydabent

I got my lifetime fill of gravel when I rode to school on gravel road when I was a kid.

WhyFi

So the answer to my question is "none"? Cool, I thought as much.

rydabent

Actually it is. I ride my 27 speed recumbent out on the hiways with the bike club, and my 24 speed trike in town on our 130 miles of hard surface trails. After working for the same company for 47 years, I have good retirement pay and with SS I have a livable income. I have been blessed with outstanding health for an 83 year old. I ride about 25 miles every other day EXACTLY the way I want to ride, not the dictates of "real cyclist". With few worries and a great family, yes you could describe my present life as blissful. It would be great if everyone could enjoy the same.

Reflector Guy

Uphill in both directions, too.

rydabent

Actually riding any if todays DF bikes is little different than riding than riding an 1890s DF bike. Come forward to the 21st century and ride a recumbent bike or trike.

Darth Lefty 

especially mountain bikes…

rydabent

You call me a curmudgeon yet if you have followed this forum, you will find that I immediately adopted index shifting and disc brakes, because they were logical. Two or three years ago I as roundly bad mouthed about disc brakes. It was in fact the "real cyclist" that was doing all the nay saying about both index shifting and disc brakes.

I might add that some claim I am against large bike MFG, this is not true at all. Well maybe their sales departments that try to pass some illogical crap like 1x12 off as new.

rydabent

Except a bicycle doesnt leave a big pile of horse**** in your garage.

If you read a little true history big cities in say 1880 they had their streets full of horse**** . When it dried it blew all over everywhere.

Reflector Guy

This thread just reminds me how tough sarcasm can be for some to grasp.

Rolla

Self-styled populist heroes railing against the capitalist deep-pocket elites is so 2016.

livedarklions

Did you have the job of cleaning it off the streets then?

MattTheHat 

Yeah, they look pretty much IDENTICAL. (sarcasm off)

I was just looking at those wooden wheels and huge steel gears and thinking how comfortable my CF bikes are compared to what it must have been like to ride one of those contraptions.

Iride01 

My wife last week was bemoaning the "death" of her 36 year old Maytag washer. All the usual they don't make 'em like they use to and all the other phrases one can make for how great things were BITD (back in the day).

Now that she has her new washer she is finding that she actually likes it and might even have wished to have gotten a new washer sooner instead. Sort of like I was when I went from a 1990's era bike to a 2020 bike. Despite all the great rides my old bikes were, the new bike is so much more fun to ride.

indyfabz

My mom was like that. She had a dryer that finally gave out after some 30 years. I could not convince her that she had gotten her money's worth.

indyfabz

Do you realize that he does not own the bike and trike that he claims to? It's part of his troll persona.

mstateglfr 

Do you guys own a matching set of his and hers washers?

rydabent

Tru a foot of snow, and having to beat off the wolves with my Roy Rogers lunch box.

rydabent

That was slightly before my time.

Iride01 

In the legal aspect, then substitute the word "our" for "her".

Typically she does all the laundry and I do all the cooking. So fair trade off for me. The decision on what to get was mostly her decision.

You wouldn't refer to your spouses undergarments' as "ours" would you?

Maelochs

That is an excellent response. I quite enjoyed it.

rydabent

Knowing a little about older Maytag washers, they had an extremely simple mechanism to oscillate and spin, it was almost bullet proof, and almost all of them would run a minimum of 20 years. See how long the new washer lasts.

mstateglfr 

I was just giving you ****.

Hopefully you guys didnt get this. The Wiz-O-Matic may have been state of the art, but the naming for something that should inspire cleanliness was done by an 8 year old.

zandoval 

In Control... Questionable... walking into a big modern bike shop/Retailer is like walking into a car dealership. Most likely financing being the top priority. Like automobiles it would appear that bicycles are becoming more complex and only maintainable via proprietary knowledge and tools. And like autos most people are accepting this.

I had a young guy bring over a fairly new TREK. He had seen me tinkering around with my old bikes in the drive way. He needed his cables tightened and brakes adjusted. We spent a good two hours figuring it out as I have minimal knowledge on bicycle disk brakes. Hey... It was fun... What surprised me was this guys inability to manipulate even the most basic tools. And not for want cause he was very attentive in learning how to do the adjustments. I am a pretty good teacher, especially with someone who is interested. Before he left he was very interested in a little MIXTI I was stripping down. Of course I told him about BF.... Ha

Edit: Still Just A Rant - And here's another thing, maybe its just my age. I can remember bike shops with squeaky wooden floors and not much definition between the working area and the sales area. Boxes stacked high with who knows what and everything just a little on the greasy side, especially the employees. Often the only indications of those bike shops existence was the bikes for sale lined up out side to make room inside...

Iride01 

No, My grandma and my mom only believed in Maytag's. My mom used a Maytag wringer washer till about 1967 and grandma used an older Maytag wringer washer into the early 70's. My wife also came from a Maytag only family. But sadly Maytag went the way of Schwinn's. So now we'll have to see what these new fangled things with Wi-Fi do. <grin>

Doesn't bother me. In fact it makes me more aware of things I might have not considered sometimes. For me, picking, poking, ribbing or whatever you call it is useful.