I also think a disposable society in the US has a role. A sizable number of fine bicycles are lost from any given period when they are considered worthless. In the UK I suspect worthless meant ridden to death (witness the repainting industry and the focus on low cost repaints). Also it was generally more reasonable to get a frame repaired in the UK. In the US I think a lot of fine but dusty, flat tired, machines went from garage to curb, then the dump. This was not helped by the dominance of fixed gear racing bikes until the '50s. One contributor told of finding a Drysdale on the curb within the past year or so. If a good old frame went as far as the curb in the UK I bet it had a better chance of being recycled.
On the other hand, as Chuck Schmidt reminds us, there's plenty of good loot still in the garages!
Joe
At 04:04 PM 3/31/01 -0500, Jerry & Liz Moos wrote:
>I think you're right about the reasons for interest in 70's era machines.
Much
>of the "core" membership of the list is composed of guys in their 40's and
50's
>who started riding in the 70's. In many cases, our classic "collections"
started
>with dusting off the bikes we had bought new back then and just never
sold. In
>my case, these were a LeJeune, a Windsor Pro, and an ALAN Competition,
plus an
>ALAN SuperRecord and an A-D Superleicht I acquired in the 80's. In
addition, for
>those of us in the US, our more recent acquisitions are mostly 70's or 80's
>vintage, as quality road bikes were very rare in the US before 1970, so
few are
>found for sale here. The UK members have the advantage of a longer
continuous
>history of quality road bike, so it is much easier for them to find bikes
from
>the 30's through the 60's at reasonable prices. I think most of the US
members
>find such bikes interestung as well, we just lack the knowledge of and
access to
>them that our British friends enjoy.
>
>Regards,
>
>Jerry Moos
>
>RALEIGH531@aol.com wrote:
>
>> Bob,
>> Nice to see you've reconsidered.
>> I can see where shoe thing was pushing things a bit, but I'd rather hear
>> someone's solution for finding cleated shoes to ride with than to see SPD's
>> on their Raleigh or Peugeot!
>> I find older bikes (1940-50's) interesting too; but the problem is lack of
>> supply of the bikes themselves and of anyone with any firsthand knowledge.
>> I live in an area that offers little hope of finding anything older than
bike
>> boom era bikes, not much I can do about that. Anything older will likely be
>> balloon tired.
>> My oldest bike is a 74.
>> The list membership seems to me to lean heavily towards the 70's as their
>> focal point. There are some members with early track bikes, but I think the
>> numbers of early road bikes is very low.
>>
>> If anyone has older bikes they haven't told us about, please let us hear
from
>> you!
>>
>> Pete Geurds
>> Douglassville, PA