Vintage Bicycles
from the 70s, 80s & 90s
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Why Ride Vintage? 🚴🏽♀️
There are many reasons why vintage bicycles are superior to the modern da, mass- produced bikes that you can find at the bike shop around the corner or even online. But why ride vintage when you could just as well buy a new bike? Please read on for a few reasons: -
Build Quality 💪🏼
By this we mean the quality of the frame and it's components. Vintage steel bicycles are often hand-crafted by experienced builders or produced by well known brands such as Concorde, Motobecane, Peugeot and Raleigh. Lugs were carefully filed and brazed, where the attention to detail was very prominent to ensure a long lasting frame. This quality results in most vintage frames having only small imperfections (this is dependant on use, of course), despite their age. Today's production bikes are simply not built to last a lifetime, at all. If you want a bike to treasure and pass on to future generations, go for a vintage bicycle! -
Ease of Repairs 🛠
Vintage bikes are pretty simple machines! They don't have complex components (electric shifting or fancy hydraulic brakes didn't exist back then) so they can be relatively easy and inexpensive to get in working order. Once you have found your vintage gem, it is recommended you take it to your local bike shop for a full check-up. Not only will you support a small business, but you'll be sure that your bike will be in complete working order. Common replacements include tires and tubes, cables and housing and the chain. If you have time and you want to learn, you can always try to make some of the repairs yourself, or with the help of a knowledgeable friend.
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The Environment 🌱
Environmental reasons for not buying a new bike trump almost all the other reasons. Each new bike manufactured adds roughly 530 lbs of deadly greenhouse gases to our atmosphere. In 2016, 12.6 million new bicycles were manufactured and sold in Europe. Doing the math, that results into 6.7 billion pounds of greenhouse gases spewing out into the environment in one year alone, all due to the consumer demand for new bicycles. Considering all vintage bikes have long earned back their carbon footprint, it's the most eco-friendly way to go!
"A bicycle, also called a bike or cycle, is a human-powered or motor-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A bicycle rider is called a cyclist, or bicyclist."