Joel, A very good and thought provoking post. With the intention of our hobby to preserve the sprit of vintage bicycles, the collective database of brainpower out there is truly staggering. There are list members out there that have forgotten more than I have learned about this hobby, sport and craft. In answer to your first question, I can say that some of the knowledge can never be recovered once people pass on but what we collectively do as a group, through this list, the weekend vintage rides, the swap meet get togethers, the VR's and Cirques, and what we can teach our kids and grand kids-will ultimately determine if people will still care and be interested in a century from now.
Will there be a bidding frenzy for my Peter Weigle on ebay in 2076? I hope so because while he may be gone, his work and that of his peers will be validated.
Michael "future boy" Schmidt Stirling, NJ
On 9/15/06 2:05 AM, "Joel McFarlane" <tomacropod@gmail.com> wrote:
> reading, as I do, the CR list and others, I'm constantly impressed by the
> knowledge and experience displayed in discussions about classic bicycles and
> cycling in general. It seems to me that the most knowledgeable and
> experienced contributors are those who were actively involved with bicycles
> and bicycling during the relevant time period - which makes sense. My
> question is, can what extent can the sort of vast knowledge displayed here
> be passed on without that direct experience?
>
> As someone who was, in a cruel irony, born in the year that the CR list
> appropriately makes the cut-off between modern and classic (1983), I and
> others of my generation can never have the 1st hand experience of the sort
> which makes other members of this forum so valuable. Working as I do in the
> modern bike shop, will my knowledge and experience of modern bikes ever be
> used in a "classic" context? I find it hard to believe so. This is not
> intended as yet another post debating the cut-off year or its redefinition
> over time, but rather whether knowledge of the post-war golden era of the
> racing cycle will ever lose definition, as we lose those who were involved
> at the time?
>
> Feeling my age,
>
> Joel McFarlane-Roberts. Canberra, Australia.