robow

If you could tour on any vintage road or touring bike, which model and/or year would it be. Now before I hear the choir sing, "Touring is not about the bike but the experience" let me just say "yes, I agree" but I need a new project to waste money and time on so may I please hear your ideas. Thanks

Standalone 

I have indeed found "the one." My Taiwanese '85 Raleigh Alyeska rides like a dream. Just a great bike, gorgeous paint, and everything I need for my style of lightweight-tent backpacker style guerilla from-my-own-doorstep style of touring.

staehpj1 

While the whole notion of touring on a vintage bike isn't especially appealing to me, If I did that I'd go for whatever bike you dreamed of when you were young. For me I guess that would be a Schwinn Paramount.

Then again what I have toured on lately might fit the category in some folks estimation. I rode a 1990 ish Cannondale crit bike on the Southern Tie, I rode a 1990 ish Cannondale MTB in Colorado last trip, and I have a 1990 ish Cannondale road race bike that I might tour on soon. The fact that they are 20 some years old doesn't make them vintage in my mind though. I ride them because either I have that them since new and like them or in one case because I picked it up cheap.

fietsbob

an early stumpjumper.. the long chainstay and 68, 70 degree cruiser geometry , made them not so hot as mountain bikes .
Same makes them OK as a beast of burden, Touring .

Standalone 

The basic field-repairability of older friction shifting bikes makes them appealing from a practical sense, and adds to the simplicity aesthetic that I tend to look for in my touring experience.

cyccommute 

A Cannondale touring. Pick a year from 1983 to 2009, although they didn't really hit their stride until about 1985 when they went to cantilever brakes. I have a 2003 T800 which is a wonderful touring bike. Very similar geometry to the ST500 (their first model) but with a few refinements.

Myosmith

Trek 520, or my current Trek 700 outfitted as a flatbar touring. Great riding, solid, and reliable.

shipwreck

Hey Robow

If I could do anything I wanted... Lightweight inn to inn touring on a Alex Singer or Rene Herse. Through countryside that was so Euro pretty it would be like a cleche.
I would settle for a neat old Peugeot though new england.

But generaly I settle for this


around the hills here at home. Staying in a cabin with friends who drove there in an afternoon...
my Fuji S10S all Fauxed out with a SA hub and whatnot.

This is my current favorite go to for light-ish vintage touring. New old stock frame with more or less period correct parts.

It really looks better with brake hoods, don't it?
The best vintage bike I have actualy ridden on was a Miyata 1000. Did 168 miles over the Boston Mountains on it over the course one one horrible, wonderfull, and painfull day.
Still have it, 54cm frame is to small for me. I had a long stem and seatpost, but decided that my Univega Gran Turismo at 58cm would do better for loaded touring.



And for really light fast touring, I have done some long weekend trips on this, a 1980 Team Fuji.


There was a hammock and some power bars in the bag as well as a camelbak bladder, and thats about it.

I guess that I could afford one new bike, but find taking trips on crap I find to be more fun.

B. Carfree

I've got a stumpjumper from around the second year they made them. It's a nice bike that I mostly use for hauling heavy, as in 500 pound, loads. It's not what I would like to tour on since I prefer to average over 100 miles per day and it would require me to sit too upright, not to mention the somewhat dead feel of the bike.

The vintage touring bike of choice for me is the one I actually tour on. It's a Trek 720 from 1982. It's got nice, long chain stays which is a critical feature for my size 51 shoes and it rides like a dream. The early years of the 720 had an unfortunate seat stay-seat tube junction that was prone to failure and sure enough, mine failed. I had a frame builder do a bilateral hip replacement and it's better than new.

wahoonc

My semi custom Bob Jackson from 1975, it was stolen 6 months after I built it up and never recovered or replaced.

Aaron

Jonathandavid

Last year, Amsterdam framebuilder Wim van der Kaaij stopped building the legendary RIH bicycles. I could never afford one, and now it's too late to have one made to my specifications.

Burton

Miyata 1000. Always regretted selling that and I don't know if it was really as nice as I remember - but I remember it being really nice.

Western Flyer 

Well, back in my day it was the Paramount, my 1960 Paramount. If someone asked me what company made it, I knew instantly that they knew very little if anything about quality bicycles. My first long tour at the age of sixteen was on the Paramount riding from Vancouver BC to Tijuana BC. If you can find one, you will pay more for it today than I did new over fifty years ago.

But would you really want to tour on it? The Lyotard pedals were death traps, where you had to reach down and release the foot straps to get your foot off the pedals before you stopped. I had the Paramount specially equipped with “wide-range” gearing for the big tour – that would be 52/48 f and 13-24 r. The lowest tier modern Shimano derailleurs shift night and day better than the Campagnolo Record components I was running. And finally you would have to be crazy to run sew-up (tubular) rubber when compared to the quality and performance of high end clinchers available today.

All that said, I had a lot of fun and a lot of adventures on that bike, and I would love to ride it on a nice flat course, unloaded, for a day ride, once again.

dwmckee

I think you will find more of are riding our dream vintage bikes than just dreaming about them. Mine is a 1980 Bob Jackson... A little big for me, just the way I like it... Beat up enough so no one steals it but Campy all around and I converted to index shifting recently.... I like it so much I am going to go out again right now and take a spin...

12bar

My choice would be a late 70's Fuji America if I could find another I would buy it in a heartbeat.

fietsbob

I have one I built in '75, now we are both vintage.. [cue Sinatra singing "it was a very good Year"]

tom cotter

In car terms vintage is 25 years old. So, my 1989 Trek 520 has one more year to go!!! The 89 Trek is old in birth date only and is a great bike to tour on. Anything else? Well, for me, touring is about utility, comfort and reliability. I'll ride anything that meets those standards.

fietsbob

In Wine terms, It just means what year the Grapes were havested , and crushed.

Cougrrcj 

Crap, and here all this time I've been doing it all with a 'Special Road Racer' S-10S like shipwreck for 45,000+ miles... but mine has been 'updated' to 18spd.



I keep telling myself that I should get something more 'modern' and up-to-date, but I really don't see the benefit of spending cubic dollars when I have a tried-and-true friend.

VT_Speed_TR

I think I'd want to get an appreciation for the early bike tourers way of traveling. So I'd pick one of these bikes that my LBS has on disply in their attic.

https://oldspokeshome.com/full-museum-image-gallery

Chris_in_Miami

I'd probably look for a vintage Bruce Gordon, but my 1985 Schwinn Voyageur SP perfectly adequate.

shipwreck

Its actualy a really nice riding bike, isn't it?
Yours is beautifull. Mine was the same blue, more or less. Got it from the original owners father for 5 bucks, stripped and painted it british racing green. Mine is actualy dressed out in Fuji branded Suntour derailers and crank right now, but still has that great I-beam Nitto stem.

surfjimc

My very first tour was on a 1983 Specialized Expedition. Two years ago I found one on ebay and rebuilt it to tour on. So I guess that if I could have any vintage bike to tour on, I have mine right now.

imi

Miyata One Thousand.
In 1986 I couldn't afford a 1000, so I bought a 100, the sport tourer. It served me faithfully until being retired just.three years ago.

skilsaw

My favorite bike was a 1981 Nishiki Olympic. If the Nishiki International from the same period is as good, I'd like to try one of them.