Actually, it was clipless pedals that led me into classic bike collecting. In the mid to late 90's, I resumed riding after a pause of a few years and tried to get my wife to join me, as she had several years before. She enjoys cycling but isn't exactly a "natural" at it and had taken some time to get accustomed to toe clips and straps when she first started riding lightweight road bikes with me many years ago. Meantime I had "upgraded" my old bikes to clipless pedals. However, she absolutely balked at the idea of clipless pedals, observing that, "Hell, it took me long enough to get used to toe clips!" Faced with this intransigence, I restored the traditional pedals to her bikes, and wound up doing the same to mine. This suggested the idea that maybe some of what I had kept around for 25 years were not just "old bikes" but now "classics" and maybe I should remove all the "upgrades" and restore all the original equipment. About that time I discovered Classic Rendezvous, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Regards,
Jerry Moos
Houston, TX
>
> >From that Speedplay webpage David Bilenkey referenced
>
> http://www.speedplay.com/
>
> you can see the modern clipless pedal was invented in 1895, so they do
> predate the 1983 cutoff by a bit.
>
> Still I vote for not discussing them here, because you can find endless
> discussion of them on virtually every other bike related forum. Not that
> anyone cares about my vote, and this is a benign dictatorship anyway not a
> democracy, but I think a classic bike loses something when you put
clipless
> pedals on it. Is it really so awful to have to use period-correct shoes
> when taking your bit o' history out for a spin? Classic Rendezvous is no
> place for wimps!
>
> Mark Bulgier
> Seattle, Wa
> USA