My Vintage Cycling Adventure
History has a way of repeating itself, or in my case revealing a hidden passion. For me that was passion was cycling.
I would say for the most part I had a pretty normal childhood with many little boy activities including playing in the mud, running everywhere and riding bikes. I don’t remember too much of learning to ride but I sure do remember my first real bike. It was a hot pink front wheel drive (think tricycle style) bike with solid foam white tires. I loved that thing and rode the tires off it, quite literally. I had a couple other bikes through my growing up years but my attention eventually moved elsewhere…I wanted to drive. Once I got my license my bike riding took a back seat. I traded my two wheels for four and was loving every minute of it, at least for a while. As my newfound love for the automobile starting fading, I found my Dad’s old Trek road bike in the attic. I brought it down, cleaned it up, took it for a ride and fell in love all over again. The flood of joy and freedom came rushing back from my childhood - those joyrides around the neighborhood with not a care in the world. I was hooked. Over the next few years, I used my bike for exercise, transportation, and even long-term travel. All on my Dad’s 85 trek road bike. It wasn’t until I went shopping for a new bike did I come to realize and appreciate vintage bikes and their simplicity. Parts were easy to work on, looked great, and their steel frames rode like a dream.
As I moved deeper and deeper down the vintage bike rabbit hole I started to understand why a lot these bikes are collectible, sought after, and still being ridden all these years later. I have devoted a lot of time learning about these bikes and still ride vintage as much as I can. The foundation of this page is to help build greater knowledge about our cycling past and hope to reveal that newer is not always better.
I have had quite a few vintage bikes over the last few years and hope to ride and restore more. Take a look at my builds and restoration section for more of the bikes I’ve built including the recent restoration of my dad’s 1985 Trek 420.