Old versus new bicycles

[Fritz Katzenjammer]

Yesterday I started a new job. After years of stress and crap sleep at night worrying about Ford or GM or McDonnel Douglas I’ve left manufacturing and landed a part time job as...

A bicycle mechanic!
Anyway, I was given some bikes to assemble yesterday. All pretty aluminum framed jobs with thousand dollar price tags. Nice stuff, but after years away from “new” bikes I was surprised at what I found. While bikes have gotten far more complicated in many ways the quality of the fittings has dropped to pretty sad levels. Gear systems for instance have tons of gears but contain lots of really stupid little design errors and poor details that make them more difficult to set up and I fear not as long lived as the hardware on the mountain bike I bought 25 years ago.

brakes, of the disc variety, are a bitch to set up without horrible dragging noises, and appear to be far easier to damage than the hardware on the afore mentioned mountain bike. While discs are wonderfully powerful and controllable, I really can’t see an advantage when I can reliably lift my old bike’s back wheel off the road under braking with its old caliper rim brakes and there’s no disc to bend if the bike is thumped about.

clamps and such... general fittings around the bike now need to be carefully torqued or they simply fail to function correctly or break outright. When mounting a brake caliper on the front of a road bike with carbon fibre forks I was warned to be very careful with the mounting bolts as they they are very hard to align and ruin the fork if cross threaded or over tightened or left too loose! Which is all fine except there’s no clearance in the assembly to allow easy assembly or use of a torque wrench and there’s no torque specification provided.

while I understand and appreciate the advances made in technology, I must say I’m amazed at the decrease in general overall toughness of the new machines. I really think we are going the wrong way in many respects. We now seem to have a choice between reasonably priced department store bikes which are total crap or more costly machines which can be fragile and possibly quite expensive to run because of overcomplicated drivetrains and poor component quality and design. Never mind carbon fibre’s ability to hide damage and then fail catastrophically without any warning sometime down the road and its ability to just age poorly.

have I gone nuts or am I missing something here?
Or should I happily continue to cherish my steel monsters while keeping my opinion to myself at work.

 

[Skunkrivercycles]

I've been a bike mechanic for a decade working on mid-to-high end bikes new, and working on all levels and ages of bikes old. I will say I came into this profession preferring the older stuff, but oh my god have things improved in every conceivable way on modern bikes. Not EVERYTHING is to my liking, but the modern geometry on a lot of the steel touring and gravel bikes is designed for an actual human being unlike bikes of old. The ride quality is amazing, which is nothing new, but many new bikes ride like butter, especially when you add things like a tubeless setup and some nice cushy tires. A good set of hydraulic disc brakes or even V-brakes will stop on a dime whereas many older caliper brakes are merely a suggestion.

Now if we are talking strictly high end aluminum or carbon bikes, yeah the durability may not be up there if you're used to the absolute 50-pounds tanks like older Schwinns, etc, but performance-oriented riders who are paying $3000+ for a performance bike don't want that either. If you're in the industry long enough, you'll see which bikes are "for you" and which ones arent. There are way more flavors today than there were even in 1990. If you like the older steel bikes, there are many modern bikes that will float your boat. The setup for a lot of this stuff is really not that much different than setting a bike up in the early 90s aside from weird one-off stupid designs from Shimano that only last a single model year or two. At the moment most of the current generation stuff is great despite some design duds in the past few years. In my decade of working at the shop we have only had to warranty maybe 1 or 2 frames for failures, both of which were approaching 15-20 years. The durability is not anything to worry about.

The only real complaints I have are some of the notoriously bad designs where they take a decades-old existing, reliable standard and try to overhaul it for...reasons. But the designs require precise tolerances that can't be met by basic inexpensive production methods. Stuff like BB30 for example was the bane of my existence for a while. Thankfully we have sales reps who we can complain to and even if they do damage control and act like nothings wrong, we tend to see those stupid technologies go the way of the dodo within about 5 years once they can't hide their mistakes any longer. Cannondale for example have returned to good old fashioned english threaded bottom brackets on a lot of their formerly-pressfit bikes. Thank god.

A lot of engineering goes into making the new systems shift without error, and smoothly, which is something that certainly not be said about any derailleur bike prior to maybe 1989 or so. And all that technology has trickled down so even the low-end bikes have systems with millions of dollars of R&D that have been borrowed. If anything even the cheapest bikes are miles ahead than the department store bikes of old....as long as an actual shop goes through and assembles and adjusts them correctly. Realistically the stuff isn't hard to set up at all, but you have to be sure of certain things...smooth moving cables, straight derailleur hangers etc. Nothing new either...

Now I'm a car guy, and I HATE modern cars. Completely. The technology, the hand-holding, the bulkiness, etc. But remember that they are absolutely perfect for the modern consumer. That's what they want. I want a thing I can fix on the side of the road with a screwdriver and an adjustable wrench. They want a thing that never ever breaks in the 10 years they keep it before selling it. There's an element of that in any transportation industry and bicycles are no different, except I've really come to appreciate the improvements since they are still (mostly) fully mechanical machines that can be fixed with simple tools no matter how much money has been pumped into the technology. The hydraulic stuff is a bit of an exception, and don't even get me started on the electronic shifting systems....but you don't have to have that stuff if you dont want it. Yet.

Stick around for a while and you'll go from being the guy at the shop who hates setting up disc brakes to the guy at the shop who can dial them in in less than a minute. Trust me. Practice makes perfect.

 

[Muji]

Old versus new anything! I like old stuff, one attraction of vintage bicycles, because a driving strategy of Corporate America is Designed Obsolescence; EVERYTHING is designed to fail. They want to sell you multiple articles over the course of your lifetime as opposed to just one. So what you’re observing is spot on and their motivation is to cut cost (increase profit) and make it so that you will have to go out and get a replacement when that one fails. Sad but that is life in America in the 21st century. Strive to be an informed and discerning consumer!

 

[Freqman1]

Ride vintage!

 

[SirMike1983]

There is technological advancement, but the parts and modules are built for a certain life and then to be tossed. And the same is true if there is a flawed or defective part - return or toss it. More items are not "user" serviceable - you use them and then toss and replace when a certain amount of time or use is reached. Not everything is this way yet, but the philosophy of disposable parts and modules is much more prevalent.

There is also an advancement in the precision of certain parts due to computer-aided design and manufacturing. However, the parts are often made of materials more prone to breakage. Again, the intention is you just replace the part or module and toss the old one. The level of repair and re-use is lower, even if the initial part is precisely manufactured using a computer.

This philosophy suits the current consumer attitude overall. But I would hate to see someone try to fix some of these bikes in 30 years, when the "replace and toss" doesn't work so well due to parts unavailability.

 

[J-wagon]

From my mtb perspective, the modern rigs are hands down more capable. Eg, my 1983 Trek 850 (trek first production mtb) is surprisingly very capable and fun to ride for a full rigid but my modern mtb higher end model is substantively more capable, no major issues. They are dialed in so riders can enjoy technical trails, go farther than before. But for beach, park, errands I love my heavy steel 80 plus year old ballooner.

 

[Skunkrivercycles]

There is technological advancement, but the parts and modules are built for a certain life and then to be tossed. And the same is true if there is a flawed or defective part - return or toss it. More items are not "user" serviceable - you use them and then toss and replace when a certain amount of time or use is reached. Not everything is this way yet, but the philosophy of disposable parts and modules is much more prevalent.

There is also an advancement in the precision of certain parts due to computer-aided design and manufacturing. However, the parts are often made of materials more prone to breakage. Again, the intention is you just replace the part or module and toss the old one. The level of repair and re-use is lower, even if the initial part is precisely manufactured using a computer.

This philosophy suits the current consumer attitude overall. But I would hate to see someone try to fix some of these bikes in 30 years, when the "replace and toss" doesn't work so well due to parts unavailability.

What stuff are you talking about specifically? Modern Campagnolo is still fully rebuildable. The quality on modern Shimano stuff, the highest-end of which are still made in Japan is fantastic aside from some of the carbon cranksets which are known for delaminating (which I'm sure they have fixed since Shimano still to this day honors some warranties from the late 90s). I'd put their current drivetrain offerings way above the stuff they were making in the mid-2000s which felt incredibly flimsy by comparison. SRAM's warranty department is so good that they'll replace parts free of charge and not even request that you return the defective part. These companies have enough to lose that they really don't try to put out absolute disposable trash unless we are talking about the absolute bottom end of the bike segment, and anymore very little of that is made by reputable manufacturers anyway aside from like $4 non-series Shimano derailleurs, which the replacement cost is less than 1/8th the cost of repair even if they were rebuildable. Shimano to this day, even on thru-axle hubs sticks with fully adjustable and rebuildable cup-and-cone style bearings rather than the cartridge bearings most manufacturers have gone to.

Working on these bikes in 30 years will be no different than working on bikes from 1992 in 2022. Unlike cars or motorcycles, there are standards that stick around in the industry. Most bikes STILL use the standard BSA threading for bottom brackets which is over 100 years old now. 9/16" pedal thread is still standard. Cable heads have not changed in decades. Rear axle spacings have varied, but if you can still get S7 size tires in 2022, there's no reason one or two manufacturers won't keep oddball thru-axle threadings and lengths in stock when there will be buyers. Suntour cassettes and accushift parts are the only thing that has gone fully extinct from that era, but any Shimano replacement drivetrain will work way better, even at the low end of the spectrum.

Sounds like just a blanket statement about the current state of "things" like electronics, etc...but it really doesn't apply at all in the bike industry.

 

[SirMike1983]

What stuff are you talking about specifically? Modern Campagnolo is still fully rebuildable. The quality on modern Shimano stuff, the highest-end of which are still made in Japan is fantastic aside from some of the carbon cranksets which are known for delaminating (which I'm sure they have fixed since Shimano still to this day honors some warranties from the late 90s). I'd put their current drivetrain offerings way above the stuff they were making in the mid-2000s which felt incredibly flimsy by comparison. SRAM's warranty department is so good that they'll replace parts free of charge and not even request that you return the defective part. These companies have enough to lose that they really don't try to put out absolute disposable trash unless we are talking about the absolute bottom end of the bike segment, and anymore very little of that is made by reputable manufacturers anyway aside from like $4 non-series Shimano derailleurs, which the replacement cost is less than 1/8th the cost of repair even if they were rebuildable. Shimano to this day, even on thru-axle hubs sticks with fully adjustable and rebuildable cup-and-cone style bearings rather than the cartridge bearings most manufacturers have gone to.

Working on these bikes in 30 years will be no different than working on bikes from 1992 in 2022. Unlike cars or motorcycles, there are standards that stick around in the industry. Most bikes STILL use the standard BSA threading for bottom brackets which is over 100 years old now. 9/16" pedal thread is still standard. Cable heads have not changed in decades. Rear axle spacings have varied, but if you can still get S7 size tires in 2022, there's no reason one or two manufacturers won't keep oddball thru-axle threadings and lengths in stock when there will be buyers. Suntour cassettes and accushift parts are the only thing that has gone fully extinct from that era, but any Shimano replacement drivetrain will work way better, even at the low end of the spectrum.

Sounds like just a blanket statement about the current state of "things" like electronics, etc...but it really doesn't apply at all in the bike industry.

I've pulled plenty post-2000 era derailleurs of several brands that were trash jobs, modern cranks that partially delaminated or developed cracks, sealed bearing sets that are toss and replace as a matter of course, SRAM transmission parts that just corrode in place and fight the mechanic, new tubes from several brands that leak air faster than even old stuff from 1950, Sun rims with huge gaps at the hoop joint, "stainless" spokes that then develop lots of red rust due to road salt, Hi-Stop hubs that basically are throwaway once the grease is gone, etc.

Perhaps at the high end, the new parts aren't as disposable as all that, but certainly somewhere at the mid-level and below, a mentality of disposable parts has taken hold more than ever. This is not to say anything of the ship containers full of big box store bikes that head not too long later to the landfill. With vintage USA or British parts, it did not have to be high end to be durable or serviceable. I pulled apart a 1954 Sturmey Archer AW last weekend that was fully serviceable. It was typical part for its era and not something "high end", but a good cleaning and adjustment set it right. Hubs like that run for a very, very long time and aren't a throwaway item.

You join a Classic and Antique bicycle forum and within two weeks launch into an argumentative screed extolling modern parts which, it appears, are sold at your shop in Iowa. It starts to look like a shill to me.

 

[fattyre]

 

[SirMike1983]

"You're gonna need a bigger bowl."