Anyone else found their retroness has waned.....?!

Re:

Cor baby! Look at that Otway! Da da da daaa! Remember this bit at 3:44 in....

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8C-BwAbAdc[/youtube]
 
Re:

Good thread. I was just showing someone my kit room today. All my Retrobike kit was neatly hung up together on the rail and I was asked if I still did much retro biking.

I thought about it and concluded that I haven't spent much time at all here on the forum over the past twelve months and, apart from a couple of laps at Mountain Mayhem, I haven't really ridden any old bikes much over the past year either.

For me I think there are a few reasons. Firstly I have well over fifty bikes, mostly retro in my collection already, and so many frames, parts and general bike stuff in my possession that I forget what I have. The urge to collect more stuff has waned.
I can walk into my storeroom, switch on the light and survey just how many ongoing projects I have. Mostly this makes me feel overwhelmed and perhaps a little ashamed as to how much I have accumulated.
Despite being very close to completing about another three or four bikes, I just don't have the motivation or time for all of my own projects at the moment.

I am very lucky. I own and run two successful businesses. One of which is my bike repair business.
This affords me the luxury of a nice big workshop and showroom space in which I can store and display all my bikes, old and new.
Of course the problem with working all the time is that I have very little time for my own bike builds and repairs. The last thing I want to do most days is turn a pile of my old bits into another nice old bike for my collection after spending all day fixing and building bikes for other people.

I'd rather spend my free time riding as much as I can.

In terms of which bike to ride; my focus this year mostly meant buying, building and riding modern road and cross bikes, very little mountain biking and certainly no time spent driving all over the country to ride.
I'm lucky to be right on the edge of the Peak District and part of a very active local cycling club. I can ride straight out from my home or workshop and be in open country within five minutes.

I'm still very passionate about old bikes and still a keen supporter of the Retrobike forum despite my absence.
I guess the novelty of nostalgia has worn off for me and the forum has evolved and perhaps lost the energy it once had.
Lots of the older forum members have drifted away and taken some of that energy with them. I suppose the retro scene has also become a little more jaded and cynical too.
Working in the cycle trade doesn't really help my own level of cynicism and occasional ambivalence towards cycling. I still love cycling as much as I always have. It's very much a part of who I am.
It's changed though seeing it from a commercial perspective. Sometimes I just need to forget about bikes by going out on my bike.

So to answer the question. Has my retroness waned? Yes, but so has my relationship with bikes. These are linked. I know that it will return though.

Must organise another RetroRide in the new year. Just like way back in 2010. Remember...? Back in the day...
 
Re:

Grateful for all the insights and points of view, wasn't expecting the thread to run to a couple of pages, let alone 11! (and counting....)

I too was closely involved with cycle shops and the industry for close on 20 years, and in that time probably saw so much low end crap in for repair, that when a 90's Kona or a nice GT turned up, and was a pleasure to work on, I found myself hankering for something 'retro', although at the beginning of my involvement with the industry, these bikes were almost current.

It's why I always loved the '96, '97 Konas with their fancy jungle graphics, so cool. But I've owned them now, worked on them at leisure in my own workshop, ridden them all over the place. Now things have moved on for me, I think the forum and retro scene in general has changed a lot in the four, five years I've been involved with it more seriously and on here. Sure, there will always be peaks and troughs in any hobby but maybe sometimes you kind of grow out of things, or subtly change your attitude towards a hobby as you get older and your priorities change.

Doesn't mean I will lose interest completely, obviously, but the last but one of my frames goes today, leaving me with one vaguely retro-ish frame and almost enough parts to make a hack bike in case I do get back into finding time for the occasional ride. The sense of relief is huge. And the very same day I sorted the sale of the last frame, the clamp on my work stand broke as I took the frame down. I'm trying to not see it as a sign........ :LOL:
 
Back
Top