You know, i was thinking about it the other day and figured this passion in old bikes is just another way of the fight against my own mortality.
Its an escape from reality to the time when everything was simple. Time when my idols didnt have any flaws, when hobbies did take up all my free time and when i didnt care how am i gonna end up career wise.
So now when i take some old bike mags that i keep in my toilet (to have them at hand
) and i look at some from the very beginning of nineties when i started riding, suddenly im back there.
I remember all the pictures, reviews and how i studied them then. I take some MBAction mags from mid nineties when i lived in NYC and i see my own comments writen in.
Translations of some english words i didnt understand back then. It does the same thing. Im back there.
I think this sentiment will probably be shared by most members here.
As i see it, the big part of this site is to have "once again" group of boys talk and salivate over those bikes we all so much loved,
with an exeption now we actually own them!
So in a way when i click on retrobike in my browser im once again young me. (some sort of a therapy :? )
This brings me into problem of "cool"
Cool changes, taste changes, we all evolve. Even in art what we today consider a great work of the past, timeless.. is considered this way for different reasons than at the time of creation..
Thats how it works. history gets interpreted by each generation differently.
What i have problem with here is, that we are still the original generation, that lived that history, which i feel as sort of responsibility.
Quite frankly, when id see now pics of mtb Campa, i kinda like it
When i look at the pic of Klein with full groupset now, its interesting.
But then i step back, and see that its not me "the exited teenager" i came here to be.
But instead its me " the selfish collector and geek" with totally different agendas..
Im sure in the future, history of MTB will be rewritten and certain brands and people will be emphasized.
But since i lived it, still remember it and in my mind i like coming back to that time, the honest view of me "teenager" will always be stronger over what i think now.
Because "NOT COOL" was the original and true state of Campa.
"COOL" is the new superficial state that we made among ourselves now.
I just red that interesting interview with Mr. FUNK and he said it right there. He became rich in the boom years because what all Europe and whole world wanted was AMERICAN STUFF.
Basically if it had that little flag and writen MADE IN USA on it, it was in.
Outside usa there were just a few other companies that reached cool status internationally, but CAMPAGNOLO had had almost all the atributes of uncool.
*Big company
*road cycling pedigree (huge turnoff)
*not american
*elegant design (road cycling pedigree)
*functionality
btw its funny that the harshest critique of campa in this thread came from Italian..
WOW you did it Al!
4:30 in the morning. I gotta go to sleep
cheers to all
jan
