What state is retro biking in at the moment?

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lensmansteve":1a5amhry said:
legrandefromage":1a5amhry said:
Museum piece is a bit of a derogatory term. Just about any bicycle from the last 7 decades can be rebuilt and made 'comfortable' and safe for riding

I think so too, LGF. . . .
But I just have a liking for this retro era, probably because the bikes aren't too far away from that old Black Diamond. Better brakes. Fatter tytes. And usually made of the proper stuff (steel) as well.
I have a liking for this era too. But if I cast my mind back over the last three months or so, I cannot recall seeing a single rider, other than myself, on a 90s or earlier mountain bike, aside from some old Apollos, etc. being used for utilitarian purposes. Yes, they can be made safe and they're a good ride but there just aren't many people riding them. Just like classic cars: people collect them but they're not usually used for daily driving. Vintage road bikes are a different story - plenty about.
 
Re: Re:

CassidyAce":15ru0ep8 said:
lensmansteve":15ru0ep8 said:
legrandefromage":15ru0ep8 said:
Museum piece is a bit of a derogatory term. Just about any bicycle from the last 7 decades can be rebuilt and made 'comfortable' and safe for riding

I think so too, LGF. . . .
But I just have a liking for this retro era, probably because the bikes aren't too far away from that old Black Diamond. Better brakes. Fatter tytes. And usually made of the proper stuff (steel) as well.
I have a liking for this era too. But if I cast my mind back over the last three months or so, I cannot recall seeing a single rider, other than myself, on a 90s or earlier mountain bike, aside from some old Apollos, etc. being used for utilitarian purposes. Yes, they can be made safe and they're a good ride but there just aren't many people riding them. Just like classic cars: people collect them but they're not usually used for daily driving. Vintage road bikes are a different story - plenty about.

You just havent been looking!

We are out there

We are watching
 

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In my village, I do see quite a lot of mtb's around, local and not. Must admit I am the token old geezer on token old mtb, a part I'm happy enough to play. There's a nearby couple with garish his and hers Kleins I see once in an (anodised) blue moon, and I know a neighbour who has a 90's Kona collection, but hardly see him about either. There's just not the number of mtb riders who have the time or inclination to get down to the maintenance/rebuilds older bikes need, then there's the availability of parts that are obsolete..plus bikes have "improved", ie the "Less spanner work, get rid soon anyway, but it is a very hi-tech bike" philosophy. Hang on, isn't that the consumer society's dream? I've always tried to avoid that particular dystopia.
 
You see quite a few around here. Old bike, looked after and ridden as commuters and to get to places (not just forgotten about old bikes, riden with dry chains and flat tyres)

It would be nice to get a few, old bikes only, like the good old days.

Ride old and the news can tag along is good for weekly meets and stuff, but for larger rides that's not the spirit and I don't see the point. Join in or don't bother.
You've moved on from old bikes at that point, it's not why you're here.
 
I love to see old bikes being used. The care that an old bike's been getting is usually written all over it, good and bad. You can often hear it as well. And smell it, come to think about it. No, I don't mean sniffing it.
The social side is not that important to me these days. I used to go on Sunday rides with the CTC. Did a sponsored ride for Greenpeace from Manchester to Glasgow. Did 400 miles round the Netherlands with some mates.
Think I might be somewhere on the Asperger's spectrum though, I really enjoy cycling alone.
Other reasons too. Gone wildly off-topic there, apologies.
 
Duxuk":ag4n1mto said:
I’ve seen a few retro bikes out and about during lockdown. They probably haven’t been ridden in years, judging by the riders with no helmets!

BS! I ride 3 - 4 days a week on my a '95, '97 and a 2002 "vintage" bikes sans helmet.

Last week in Dalby:
 

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Warning, my opinions are just that. Opinions and not judgements against anyone who disagrees, which they are welcome to do. They may also be controversial but not anti retro.

Do this thread mean riding old bikes or “Retro bike”-ing?

Riding old bikes is alive and well due to covid 19. I live on the North Sea cycle route and lately there’s been loads of people out riding their bikes. Many of them are retro but to the owner they are just their bikes. These people aren’t retro biking, they are just riding a bike that happens to be old. That’s great. They don’t care if the parts are nos or if the tyres aren’t catalogue. That’s what it’s about.

Arguably, the collector aspect of the hobby has killed the riding side. People have spent years picking up parts for the perfect build and now don’t want to ride it. Each to their own and all that, but I like mine to be ridden. This will sound daft but that’s why I sold my last build. Built it up out of the best parts I could, but wasn’t afraid to ride it. Got to the stage I didn’t have the time or perhaps inclination to ride it on trails that suited it, so I sold it to someone who did. I still have a retrobike that I’ve owned since new and that will always stay, but frankly it’s no use for what I ride now.
You may ask why I’m still here then? Well I’ve met lots of good people here, received and (hopefully) given good advice and I still have an interest in other people’s builds.
I was AEC for a few years but struggled to get a decent if any turnout for rides. I also never had a retro only policy. Retro preferred yes, but if for any reason you couldn’t you could ride modern. You may not agree, but I’d rather people got to see old bikes being ridden even if they were on a new bike as it may inspire them in a build of their own. One of the last meets was at Glentress and we got more attention at the top of Spooky Wood, than anyone on their brand new bikes.

So where from here? Unfortunately the halcyon days of 40+ at a meet are over. I honestly don’t think there’s an interest for it these days. Fuel costs are up, lots of us have kids now and life is just busy. I think I caught up with the guys in my near area about 2 or 3 times last year. It’s been five years since we had a proper retro away trip.

Big events like Mayhem will attract the hard core, but for me the distance travelled outweighs the amount of riding I’d get. Yorkshire area group looks good, but even that would be a 3 day trip all in from up here.

As for the site itself, Facebook has been bad. I’m not on it, but I know loads of people who things don’t exist for if it’s not Facebook based. Rides just aren’t posted on here. Unless you are building or have a specific question or buying/selling then what does the main forum offer these days? I love this site, but over the last 8-9 years I’d done all my reminiscing and threads start repeating and end up in the same place.
A new subsection may help. Post 98 is a big spread of design these days. Yes I know, John’s site John’s rules , which is fair enough and actually I agree about the cut off date BUT most 98 - early 00’s bikes have little in common with modern bikes. To lots of younger riders those bikes are retro to them. Separating 1998 - 2008 and having a (shock) modern section would add to the site. I know the name of the site is Retrobike but having a 22 year spread lumped together confuses matters more.
 
I'm 58 & was never a mountain biker in the 80's or 90's although have cycled a bit throughout my life & bike mad as a kid. No nostalgic skin in the game. Family circumstances brought me into the modern MTB scene (& Orange) as a race-dad & rekindled my interest in cycling. Got into older examples originally as they were cheaper & appealed more & been a fettler by occupation & inclination for many years so happy to tinker. Now I have a 'collection'. I ride as much as I can & it's a great past-time. I'm a hill-walker, backpacker, xc skier primarily but physical ailment has gradually put a stop to that over recent years. I can ride better than I can walk so that is what I do & love it. One day I hope to be fixed & back on the hill on foot but cycling on my old MTB's is going to continue.
 
Fair comment there, clubby. We've all got opinions, that's a good thing.You've obviously put a lot of time into meets, postings etc, and I noticed we joined at about the same time- all I've done is a few postings.
I'm happy with the site, as I've said earlier. My newest bike is a '98, most of my bikes are pre '95. There's lots of fellow obsessives on the site. Good market place, and good people. Tbh, that's all I really want from the site. I hope it trundles on in it's current format.
 
I am a newbie on this forum but not a newbie to mountain bikes. I was present here in the U.S.A. on the west coast during the late 70s through the 90's when mountain biking was born. I was in the second half of my 20s in the late 80s and early 90s and heavily into mountain bikes. That era in my life is a very fond memory because of mountain bikes. Mainly because of the state of the mountain biking industry. I dumped all my old hacked up schwinn cruisers and bought a Giant Iguana in 1989 and over the next year I swapped out parts. For me that was the incredible part of the scene at the time. Mountain bikes were simple...there were only a few things to worry about when it came to fitting on parts. Headset, bottom bracket and seat post. If it had seat stay cantilever mounts and was built by someone to be a 'mountain bike' then chances were very very good the sky was the limit on aftermarket parts. Sure, there were exceptions but those were few. In Seattle in the early 90’s there were 3 shops I used to haunt on a frequent basis and I remember so vividly the feeling of walking in one of those shops never knowing what was going to be displayed for sale. I never got tired of seeing these insane bikes from these legendary frame builders of the time. I walk in and there on the wall is a Salsa Ala Carte in the jelly bean paint, over there was a Whiskey Town Racer in orange and green...next to that was a Mantis or a Yeti FRO. Could see a Yo Eddie in all its neon glory or Klein Attitude in team colors. The parts cases with IRD switch backs, Bullseye cranks, Grafton, Pauls, WTB...name it I drooled over it. The parts...all that anodized insanity was crazy to take in. Small little machine shops making cool stuff like brakes or levers. and it ALL worked together for the most part. and it ALL would work on my mass produced Giant frame which a lot of it did.

That right there is the reason I loved that moment in time, the simplicity and innovation of the time and why I LOVE seeing what you all do here on Retrobikes in the restorations to bring back those bikes. I had all these awesome parts on my Giant and guess what...the bullseye hubs and IRD brakes and pauls levers, they all fit perfectly on the Yeti FRO frame I bought in '90. Try that now...what spacing...normal, boost? ..this or that? tapered head tube or not...bottom bracket madness, rotors center lock or not? 26", 27.5", 29"...what rim width…will the frame fit plus size tires? All that choice is AWESOME for the crowd into it now because your choices are nonstop but it left me cold about the time Cannondale made a motorcycle and the trend was for mountain bikes to look like motorcycle. I never cared about speed or needing a foot of suspension travel or a visor on my Giro Hammerhead, it became a different mindset and a different crowd and to me that was when whole mountain bike industry started to lose its soul.

I grew up in Chehalis WA not far from the Klein shop, an unassuming building out in the country I drove by all the time and I saw many Klein road bikes on the roads before ever seeing an Attitude in real life. Even in the heyday if you didn't know what it was you would never know it produced some seriously sweet bikes. Most of the high end frames at the time were made in little places like that. In '91 I took the pilgrimage to Mt Tam and saw trails like Hoo-Koo-E-Koo, Paradigm and repack. I even saw a guy on a Ritchey P-23 at the parking lot at the top of the mountain...yeah I know, most likely not built by Tom but still it was surreal to see it on that mountain. On the way back north I checked out Salsa in Petaluma, headed out past Whiskeytown national forest to Chico CA to see the Mountain Goat shop. It was a grand time in those days and the good bike shops were filled with perfection...from the hand done welds that were out of this world perfect, components built in small shops by hand and paint schemes that will never be matched again. Heck I even got hand drawn instructions with my Yeti frame!

I rode then a lot too. I remember heading to trail heads and maybe seeing a Merlin or a Moots or a set of purple Cooks Brothers Cranks…maybe even spotting an elusive Offroad Toad from up north. We rode long and hard in the mountains and loved our bikes and talked nonstop about parts and frames and what we were going to do next to our bikes. Mountain biking was taking off then like a rocket and everyone wanted in on the action. As that started to happen the experience started to lose its magic. Heading out of the '90s towards 2000 the Trails became crowded and then closed from overuse. Everyone was making a mountain bike and it seemed everyone was selling out and hoped the sticker on the down tube kept the sales coming. I kind of stopped going to shops then but kept riding. Breeze, Bontrager, Ritchey, Shafer all started selling to larger companies or had their frames made overseas. Jeff Lindsey called it quits, FTW left Yeti. It was magical for a period of time where near mythical little bike builders produced beautiful works of art but like anything new with a potential to make crazy money…the wolves came calling. I kind of fell out of touch with what was new in mountain biking.

In 1998 Doug Curtis of Curtlo cycles moved his shop from California up to Winthrop Wa. which is only a couple hours from me. On a whim I contacted him about a frame and he said come on over and let’s talk about a bike. I did. I had never met or talked to him before that phone call but that couple hours I spent with him talking bikes and seeing how he created them rekindled the passion I had lost. He was Curtlo cycles. No marketing guy, no parts guy, or paint guy or shipping guy...there was just Doug. He got his bike and told me to hop on and take a ride around the driveway. In that 40 seconds or so of watching me ride he had enough information to build me a frame that for over 20 years has been the most comfortable and fun bike I have ever been on. I really loved the big aluminum tubes of a Klein or an American frame of the time but he said...nope...you are too big a guy for aluminum and the way you ride I can't guarantee it wouldn't fail. he said tell you what, I will build it out of oversize steel and you get your big tubes and longevity all in one. sold. I said I wanted a Headshok and disc brakes, he said how about an Actiontec and disc brakes. He told me the Actiontec story and...sold again. I picked my color and the parts to go on it, wrote him a check paid in full and a few months later I got a frame and a bunch of parts to put on it delivered to my front door. Here is a guy who made custom frames for the US olympic team to ride in the '92 olympics making me a bike frame...there is nothing but cool in all of that. Doug is such a wonderful person and the whole experience made me realize the small builder is alive and well and they will always create magic for those who love a mountain bike and seek out something truly special.

Where am I even going with all this...I guess I rambled on far too long just to say, I believe like many others here have said in this and other posts that this "retro" mountain biking thing is like anything else...it is cyclical and a moving target. I think the insane prices for old parts will slowly wind down and the next generation will be all nostalgic of free ride or downhill bikes bikes from makers like Evil, Fezzari, Intense, Ion or Karpiel they will be the “sick” bikes of a younger crowd.

I say enjoy your retro bikes in whatever way that caused you to start down the path. Ride em or hang em on your wall. Life is a journey to find a passion to light the soul right? It shouldn't matter if the Yeti C26 you took years to source ends up being worth a fraction of what you put into it...the fact you built your dream in my mind eclipses the $$ value. There will come a time that those who do it for show or to get noticed will find nobody much cares any longer and it is just another old guy on an old bike…”err…what is it again...a Yo Team Ti Eddie Fat what???...whoah...NO WAY... look at that Saracen Myst over there let's go looook!!!”

On the other hand, those that do it purely because they LOVE the magic and don't give a hoot what anyone else thinks about a mismatched anodized chainring bolt well…they will always hear the bell ringing. :xmas-big-grin:
 
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