drystonepaul":xoj0mx6u said:
I think that there is increasingly an obsession with the prices of bikes and parts, rather than the 'value' of old bikes.
I never joined Retrobike to put together a collection of bikes that had any monetary value and don't see £££ signs when I look at old bikes.
Added to the fact that I rarely ever sell anything means that I have a huge collection of stuff which may be of value to someone else if I ever had a clear out, but has a personal value to me just the way it is.
I'm not in it for the money.
I joined because I already liked the way old bikes look, feel and ride. There is also a large helping of nostalgia and a long standing belief that new and top end isn't necessarily any better. Turns out I'm also quite obsessive.
I suppose I do sometime find it frustrating when I see battered old bike bits listed at ridiculously high prices, and more so when a perfectly original and complete bike, that has survived intact for twenty years, gets stripped and sold in parts to line someone's pockets.
This happens more and more. It's a double edged sword though, because without them there wouldn't be parts around to complete bikes which need them.
In the future I suspect there will be more interest in bikes from the early 2000's as 9 speed, 26 inch wheels and cable shifted gears become squeezed out of the MTB mainstream by whatever the magazines dictate is the next big thing.
Hopefully the variety and diversity of the whole retro scene will remain, and more and more accurate information about all the brands of bikes out there will become available to complement the many fine examples of bikes that are out there and on here.
Agree completely - bold bits highlighted for truth.
Personally, it's never seemingly become some decision, I just stuck with the bikes from an era I was perhaps most active and most enjoyed cycling and mtb-ing. Growing up in the 70s and 80s, I've also been raised with longevity and practicality in mind. My very modest collection of steel framed bikes will do me - I've never truly aspired for kit that looked unbecoming to my talent, ability or fitness on a bike.
I like that the bikes I've got are either nearing, or a little over 20 years old, yet fundamentally, I suspect, will still be largely as good in another 20 years time. And if it was good enough, then, for me to enjoy, why should that hugely change. I'm not a luddite about new developments or modern bikes - I just don't want it personally - but then what I choose, now, is things that have stood the test of time. That I've got more of them, than BITD, is probably partly about having more disposable income, and / or the collecting / obsessing thing - but I've reached my natural limit, with a very modest number of bikes that I'm happy with (5, albeit only 3 immediately ridable, the other 2 have kit allocated, just need time to put them all together). Although I'd also like a steel Stumpie from the early / mid 90s, I also don't want to get to a point where I'm just collecting and not using - I'm kinda there already, and it's not like bikes are the only thing I collect or obsess about.
I despise the disposable nature of consumerism in modern society, and like you, sometimes the seemingly cynical nature of some on the scene takes the jam out of my donut. I get that bikes, parts and spares from the "retro" era will inevitably get rarer - but to a certain degree, I suspect the audience will too. Sure, new and younger people may get drawn to it, more as a trend or icon, than anything else, but that tends to be a passing thing, it's only natural that there will be less and less people who rode bikes from that era. The notion may likely endure, but the era will likely diminish and get more selective.
As to money - well I'm sure some can always, perhaps cynically, manage to make a buck on fashions, here, and there - but I doubt anybody is going to get rich from retro bike kit - and getting an increasing share of a decreasing market (well in terms of a time era, anyways) doesn't seem particularly robust from a business perspective.