Why Vintage Bicycles? Why Bother Riding Them?

 

1960 Schwinn Traveler three speed bike

Sometimes in the course of doing something, I am apt to return to the original question that started whole endeavor; of why I might do this or that; or why even bother with something at all. Well then, why bother with vintage bicycles at all and why ride them? There are surely bikes today that are lighter, faster, or more convenient. 

The answer is a pull to rebuild and ride that unquantifiable, but still can be felt. For some people the reason is nostalgia for some previous time or experience. For others, it is an interest in something old or antique. That is, a notion of what might have come in the "before times". Either of these reasons is equally valid (or invalid, as the case may be). 

 

Mark Twain wrote about his experience being drawn into piloting steamboats on the Mississippi in his outstanding book Life on the Mississippi. On that great river, he found something unquantifiable but still palpable called to him: "There were graceful curves, reflected images, woody heights, soft distances; and over the whole scene, far and near, the dissolving lights drifted steadily, enriching it, every passing moment, with new marvels of coloring. I stood like one bewitched." 

 

Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens

 

"Bewitching" is the right term for our hobby of refurbishment and riding. Like Samuel Clemens, and his river, there is something that calls to hobbyist about putting an old bike on the road, then gradually taking in the scenery on a ride. We may not be able to quantify the pull, but we can see it and feel it. There are certainly lighter, faster, newer, and more convenient bicycles, but not everything in life can be measured, yet it is there just the same.