On Monday, February 10, 2003, at 09:36 PM, chasds@mindspring.com wrote:
> There were many fine classic bikes, by any standard, made between
> 1980 and 1984...
I think it might have more to do with the explosion of mountain bikes
and the decline of the lightweight and not really the death of friction
shifting of non-aero cable routing. Also you've got to remember index
shifting actually came before friction shifting. Personally I think
the list should stop at about 1970 and the US bicycle boom. I think
bike quality plummeted to bring the numbers of bikes up to fill sales.
Beyond that anything in the 70s or after is really contemporary not
really "classic." A majority of the list talks about bikes of the 70s
and 80s because that's when most of the list became associated with
cycling. It's a nostalgia thing not a quality thing. Of course this
is coming from someone who started cycling in the bike boom but wasn't
a teenager until 1982. So what do I know, except that dale is right
when he say's everybody has different ideas about the "cut-off date."
ciao,
Brandon"monkeyman"Ives
SB, CA