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Old vs new bikes

I would doubt whether a new £300 ally bike with steel hi-ten forks will ride as nicely as a Reynolds framed racer from the 80s. Steel frames have a lovely spring over the bumps, even if they don't have all the tasty shifters etc.

Oh, and I own both steel and ally bikes, and a steel/Ti mixture, and a carbon MTB, so I've tried a few.
 
I'm pretty sure I'm a steel fan when it comes to bikes, I just seem to prefer it to either alloy or carbon. It seems to give a smoother and more enjoyable ride. One can throw the baby out in the search for light and rigid, and to my mind many modern bikes have done just that. My road bike is titanium, which is really just a very expensive way of buying a steel frame!
 
My old bike is a mid 90s Trek, so not really old. It is a very hard ride compared to my new bike, albeit that the new one is a lot more expensive. I can still ride the old one, but now I have a choice, the new one feels significantly nicer.

For me, there is great value in new bikes, £500 gets you something good and for £1,000 you can have something excellent.

I recently picked up a Jamis hybrid for my daughter, on a discount from Evans. As good a bike as she will ever need for just over £300.
 
JezmondTutu said:
Probably £300 from Halfords in one of their sales I'd say. £600 upwards starts to get you some really decent kit, you can start to get the budget carbon bikes at around £1k.

Check some of Ribble's prices for super value bikes:

http://www.ribblecycles.co.uk/pu/road-track-bike/special-edition-bikes/specialedition/1
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I recently built up a Planet X pro carbon frame with a new, full, 11 speed shimano 105 group. With a bit of shopping around I ended up with an 8kg full carbon road bike with a groupset that's way smoother than 7700 (the old 9 speed dura ace) for £950. It's a much nicer ride than it's far more expensive (aluminium) Klein and Cannondale predecessors.

The only time I might suggest looking at obsolete gear would be if you fancied building up a 26" MTB - forks, frames and wheels can be had for peanuts S/H at the mo - although the nicest stuff seems to have stopped depreciating - as I recently discovered when trying to source an Orange R8 frame for my HT.
 
Steven Toy said:
I think I'd strip everything off that Reynolds 531 frame and start again with a complete rebuild. The frame itself is a classic.
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What's the rear dropout spacing? I'd wager it's narrower than the current standard width for road hubs. (135mm, IIRC?)
 
onlyconnect said:
Except I asked "how much do I need to spend to get a bike as good as my old one" not "how much do I need to spend on a bike" :)

Tim
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Alright Tim. I'll play.

"As good as" for what? Looking at? Doing the gardening? Talking about down the pub?
 
andrewhockley said:
Why? Leave it alone and repair as necessary. If you want a modern bike buy one.
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It's a personal thing in my case. I'd love a Reynolds 531 frame with modern mechanics but in a slightly retro style. For me it's not black and white, new versus old. A bit of both would be nice.

It would be great to combine the comfortable ride, strength and lightness of the steel double-butted frame with a modern chainset and gear selectors, top-notch hubs and bottom bracket and some nice hand-built wheels.

A Brooks saddle would finish it off nicely.
 
Then buy a lightweight carbon bike. You can either send your equipment ahead or book into the closest Mercure hotel. Yes, it means you won't be able to burn sausages over the camp fire, but, hell, you're in France.

If you're downthe Cote d'Azur way you're welcome to drop in for a meal/shower/ comfortable bed.
 
I personally wouldn't take an old bike with difficult to source parts cyclo touring in France.

So IMHO it's not going to take too much money to get something that is better suited to the task than what you are renovating. I would be prepared to pay for reliability. The geometry of the frame will make a difference as will the tyres and gears, but what the frame is made of will not matter one iota IME.

There's something romantic about riding an old classic on the continent just as there is to driving an old Jag across the Alps. For loaded touring, gearing options are really important IME as is tyre choice.

I guess it comes down to whether you want a reliable and efficient mode of transport or an achingly emotive prop to a personal journey.
 
Just so Merlin - you can make a frame that's comfy, or awful, out of any frame material. As I said upthread, old bikes are a hobby - if you want to have something that has spare parts readilly available, go modern.
 
Steven Toy said:
It's a personal thing in my case. I'd love a Reynolds 531 frame with modern mechanics but in a slightly retro style. For me it's not black and white, new versus old. A bit of both would be nice.

It would be great to combine the comfortable ride, strength and lightness of the steel double-butted frame with a modern chainset and gear selectors, top-notch hubs and bottom bracket and some nice hand-built wheels.

A Brooks saddle would finish it off nicely.
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I know what you mean Steven. You could order one like that if you wanted - Jacksons, Woodrup, Dave Yates etc would all be happy to oblige. I fancy a Rohloff hub tourer. But it's not (often) as simple as just swapping the running gear over, particularly not if you want to stick current groups on an 80s bike. My house is full of bike parts waiting for a bike that they'll fit to come along. You always find lots of subtle differences that cause problems.

If you want a comfortable ride, I can recommend some of the new big light tyres that are appearing - I'm running 42mm on my road bike and it's comfy as well as pretty nippy.
 
Steven Toy said:
It's a personal thing in my case. I'd love a Reynolds 531 frame with modern mechanics but in a slightly retro style. For me it's not black and white, new versus old. A bit of both would be nice.
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In a slightly different way that's exactly what I tried to achieve with my recent Kona MTB build:

16751597565_3308560cde_c.jpg


It's a 1993 vintage steel Kona Explosif frame and P2 fixed forks, ancient in MTB terms and arguably the golden years, rebuilt from the ground up with modern components, new hand-built wheels etc. It's a superb bike IMO, a real pleasure to ride. Wonderfully out of step with modern MTB designs to the extent I've had several old-school MTB folk stop me to chat about it! Cycling/bike-building really is an area where you can do your own thing, just like hi-fi really. I'd recommend it highly, though in fairness this was a far easier restoration/modification than a 1980s road bike would be as at least I could use a modern BB, headset, stem, chainset, rear mech wheels etc. The frame lugs were the only minor issue so I ended up using appropriate vintage cantilever brakes.
 
clifftaylor said:
Just so Merlin - you can make a frame that's comfy, or awful, out of any frame material. As I said upthread, old bikes are a hobby - if you want to have something that has spare parts readilly available, go modern.
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Perhaps I should have rebuilt this with modern Campag or Shimano componentry.

8601204-lg.jpg
 
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