Advice on buying first vintage road bike?

[Woz]

As a buyer you would be spoilt for choice if you popped over to France - pretty much the same that complete retro road bikes need to be sold off for peanuts to shift. I would say in the last two to three years all of a sudden a complete nose dive.

The local bike charity can't shift them either; even if we are talking very decent upper mid level hand built with some very choice parts in very good condition, fully serviced with new skinny Continental tyres and cables for a "dérisoire" 70 Euro.

 

[bagpuss]

Does the sum total of components fetch more than the whole?
Or is that market also finished ?
Looking at prices on net some 1970s and 80's items seem over priced for a limited audience.
I think people got carried away and paid far to much for some bikes and or components. Just like the classic m/c market .

I have been guilty of this on occasions .

 

[bikeworkshop]

Does the sum total of components fetch more than the whole?
Or is that market also finished ?
Looking at prices on net some 1970s and 80's items seem over priced for a limited audience.
I think people got carried away and paid far to much for some bikes and or components. Just like the classic m/c market .

I have been guilty of this on occasions .

There's an oversupply of the parts that last - frames, front wheels, chainsets, front derailleurs, brakes calipers.
And whole bikes.

Forks, rear wheels, good saddles and rear derailleurs, headsets, short stems, and then unusual looking stuff holds up ok.

But something like a curly hetchins in good order to be worth well over a thousand, but I've seen them lately at 650, the cost of a basic new bike

 

[Swelo]

As a buyer you would be spoilt for choice if you popped over to France - pretty much the same that complete retro road bikes need to be sold off for peanuts to shift. I would say in the last two to three years all of a sudden a complete nose dive.

The local bike charity can't shift them either; even if we are talking very decent upper mid level hand built with some very choice parts in very good condition, fully serviced with new skinny Continental tyres and cables for a "dérisoire" 70 Euro.

Wow, that’s pretty dramatic. I wonder if the shift to wider tires is rendering older frames obsolete for more potential buyers?

I’ve moved on from the Cilo up thread—56 cm is simply a bit small for me, but this looks like a potentially interesting one—a 58 cm frame with Columbus tubing.

https://www.ricardo.ch/de/a/vintage-rennvelo-der-schweizer-kultmarke-sepp-fuchs-1265363596/

 

[Coalfield]

Looks nice. Racy with those short chainstays. No eyelets for fenders/racks.

 

[bikeworkshop]

That d-a group is the best.

 

[bagpuss]

Wider tyres ? Who can't remember the head long rush from 27x1 1/4 to 700c and narrow tyres. I relize this can has been kicked down the road , or shouldn't that be ridden down the road?
I have always considered the good old imperial size ideal for the average rider . Comfortable on most surfaces .The newer after market ones from Continental and Panaracer ? are very good . For the racing man / woman tubs sorted you.
I have never found anything under 25c a pleasant ride.
I often wonder what the original rough stuff rider would of thought about all the marketing bull we are now bombarded with . An up gunned 3 speed Hub to 6 by adding another sprocket would do . Now we're told we need a cassette the size of a dinner plate . If it's that steep employ your two foot gear , it gets up anything.

Saddles that's a thread in its self .

The Raleigh Randonneur really was a solid alround machine with regards the tyre size you could fit . I still own one. Cost £50 second hand ....bargain!!!

 

[non-fixie]

I often wonder what the original rough stuff rider would of thought (...)

That there's really nothing new.

A couple pics from a hundred or so years ago. Low gears? Check. Wide tyres? Check. 650B? Check.

 

[Jonny69]

What is all this toe overlap 25mm tyre madness you’re all banging on about? I doubt my front wheel would even turn with balloons that big on it!

 

[LondonClassic]

That there's really nothing new.

A couple pics from a hundred or so years ago. Low gears? Check. Wide tyres? Check. 650B? Check.

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View attachment 967755

If you rocked up at the lights (or went through them!) in that garb on Shoreditch high st you need only wait a few days before you'd start to see a legion of riders dressed like this, all of whom would insist they always wore this stuff and had done for years.

A friend of mine who builds crackpot machines from spares and rides around east London in workwear (cos he's on his way to work) has accidentally started at least three mini trends.