Facebook feeds me cycling pages one after another. Worship of new technology and “n+1” dominate the content. Even among fanciers of the retro, people with large collections boast about their hoards and receive lavish praise.
I have no desire for more bikes than I have. I don’t want to get rid of any, but it’s already hard to find time to ride each of them. I could cut it back to one or both of the Surly Cross Check variants if I had to. That said, I put a lot of miles on the beater fixed gear. The vintage steel road bike is nice. The converted mountain bike commuter still might come in handy.
Particularly when it comes to the older bikes, I’m grateful for the collectors who preserve large numbers of the versatile steel frames from the 1970s to the ‘90s, especially those without vertical dropouts. They represent a resource, not a museum of superseded technology.
Because I started working on bikes in the mid 1970s, I view frames and parts as elements to combine and reshuffle. I could never afford a fancy complete-gruppo bike. It was fun to piece together something competitively functional within my budget. Some new features did represent actual improvements, so I incorporated them as I could.
My first “ten speed” was a used Peugeot. The first summer I had it, I put on a lighter alloy crank to replace its original steel Stronglight, and my friend and mentor Diane did a lot of fancy drill work, as well as hand painting all of the decals after a rattle can repaint. She also pinstriped it and added some personalized details.
A few years later, I’d picked up a used Eisentraut frame to build a second bike. That led to a few extra bike parts lying around. So I picked up a used Raleigh Super Course frame to build a sporty urban assault 5-speed like my racing buddy Mark had built. That quickly morphed into a fixed gear.
Those three frames formed the basis of a modifiable fleet. I raced one summer on the ‘Traut, then put a rack on it and slapped in the touring wheels I’d built, to ride for three weeks from San Mateo, California, to Eugene, Oregon. Back east after the tour, I put the race gearing and sewups back on it.
The Peugeot turned into a cyclocross bike that spring. Then I moved and took a different job, so it became my fixed gear commuter with fenders and, eventually, generator lights. The Super Course was my stripped down training fixed gear.
When the Eisentraut got its first frame cracks (chainstays), I got a Grandis frame to build up with the parts from it. I raced that for a couple of years before Diane and her husband put new chainstays into the ‘Traut. Pinched for cash, I sold the Grandis frame, with a different parts kit, to a triathlete.
See how this can work? Three frames became half a dozen different bikes as needed. Good luck doing that with today’s excruciatingly specific designs.
My first mountain bike was someone else’s trade in at the shop. I swapped out the solid rear axle for a hollow one — same hub — to have both wheels quick-release. Put on sportier tires. Longer stem. Good to go.
Next, in about 1991, was a Specialized Stumpjumper, the first brand new complete bike I’d gotten in 20 years. It needed a couple of things, mostly just that longer stem.
The Stumpjumper was a tad small. I wanted a steel frame, but none of the other mid-‘90s index-shifting crap. Working in a bike shop has some advantages, like employee discounts. A 1996 Gary Fisher Aquila had a decent frame. I transferred everything from the Stumpjumper that would fit, and sold the Stumpjumper frame with the rejected Gary Fisher parts.
The Aquila evolved as the 1990s reached their end. It finally grew fenders and a rear rack around 2009. So it’s been at least two bikes all by itself. More than that if you count its mountain evolution prior to the commuter conversion.
According to the algorithm, I should be a lot more acquisitive. I should always be craving one more. I did build one more to leave where my wife works for months at a time, so I wouldn’t have to transport a bike to and from. But it was another build on an old frame. With unlimited funds my answer would be the same. It’s an art.
