Know someone with same bike since their youth?

[bmoo]

Hi all,

I'm a researcher at Ethical Consumer magazine (http://www.ethicalconsumer.org) and (to my delight) our upcoming issue will feature a buyers' guide to bikes.
We're keen to show both people's longstanding passion for cycling and the fact that if you buy a quality bike it can last you a lifetime.

Has anyone out there owned and ridden the same bike since their youth, or know anyone who has?
If so, we'd like to include a short profile on them in the magazine, including past and present pictures pictures of them/their bike, if possible.

If this sounds like you or someone you know, please get in touch!

bryony[at]ethicalconsumer.org

[[XAP]Bob]

Not since youth necessarily - but there are a fair few frames around here older than their owners, and a fair few that have outlasted most other vehicles on the road - particularly handbuilt ones...

[gaz]

I've been on the same bike since I could afford a decent one at age 18. Of course it's had more tyres than I can mention, numerous wheels, many sets of gears, three new frames....

But it's still the same bike

[ambodach]

Depends what you mean by youth. I still have and still use from time to time my old Flying Scot which I bought new when aged about 20 some 57 years ago. Frightening how time flies.

[michael42]

Hi all,

I'm a researcher at Ethical Consumer magazine (http://www.ethicalconsumer.org) and (to my delight) our upcoming issue will feature a buyers' guide to bikes.
We're keen to show both people's longstanding passion for cycling and the fact that if you buy a quality bike it can last you a lifetime.

My first thought is, Warwick Davis? Because you're looking for someone who presumably hasn't grown

That aside, I disagree with your premise and I'd suggest anyone using a bike regularly will have replaced most of it after a few years if not the whole thing. Unless your article is going to touch on the Zen notion of whether a bike where nearly all the parts have been changed is still the same bike or not, I don't see how your stated fact about quality and longevity is actually demonstrably true?

IME bikes are mechanical and they wear out based upon time and mileage and especially in our climate do so relatively quickly.

e.g I just bought a bike, delivered 14th June (£400 scott sub 35, that seemed to be the discount end of line price too), whether it counts as a quality bike or not I don't know, but the chain was rusting within the first week or two, and the front brakes are nearly gone. There's paint chipped off various parts of the bike. Quite possibly not helped by June's wet weather. But as far as I can tell, it's going to be a huge battle against entropy to keep it in reasonable shape, especially if I cycle through the winter. I've no doubt you'll find lots of bikes that have sat in a dry shed or garage for years that look fine and maybe a few that only get ridden on sunny days.

But my general view of bikes is, they're a million miles away from being high-quality long lasting things that you might own for a lifetime. Certainly compared with cars (although you could argue that cars cost a lot more) I'd be absolutely gutted if I'd spent £2k on a bike if it looked like mine after a month and a bit - I've seen very little evidence to suggest that it wouldn't though (it looks like Scott used emulsion paint on my bike it's that thin)

Ethically speaking, the country needs some way of getting rid of the wrecks we've got piling up in our garages

[meic]

I have a thirty year old Holdsworth and a thirty year old BMW R100RT.

Both of them have done a fair few miles in their life and both have had a major proportion of themselves replaced over the years.
The cycle wins hands down on ethical grounds though, apart from the thousands of litres of petrol everything else replaced on the motorbike will create at least ten times as much waste to dispose of.

Cars of course are MUCH worse.

[meic]

Like many others I have now bought "A bike for life" unfortunately it is normally old people who do this as you need to have already established what you want now is likely to be what you still want later on, learnt how to keep things safe and maintained and saved up the capitol to afford it.

When you are younger, bikes and other things seem to all be victims of "the learning curve" and changes of circumstances.

[thirdcrank]

...We're keen to show ... the fact that if you buy a quality bike it can last you a lifetime....

I don't think you will find much evidence of that on a forum like this. I have a bike from 1980 (not in my youth ) made to spec by a leading frame builder and built with the best equipment of that time and almost everything on it is now obsolete, in spite of my modernising it several times. Modern pedal cycles are a pretty good example of unnecessary obsolescence.

I'm not suggesting a bike couldn't last decades, just that spares become hard to find.

I suspect that the most likely examples of bikes lasting a lifetime will be roadsters of the Raleigh Superb type which are more likely to have been used for utilty transport rather than by cycling enthusiasts.

Plenty of people on here have been cycling a long time but not all of us do passion anymore

[pete75]

I suspect that the most likely examples of bikes lasting a lifetime will be roadsters of the Raleigh Superb type which are more likely to have been used for utilty transport rather than by cycling enthusiasts.

Personally I do use a cycle for "utility transport" and so will many other "enthusiasts", witness the number of people here who mention commuting and shopping by bike. Just because someone uses a bike for other than weekend leisure jaunts doesn't mean they're not an enthusiastic cyclist.

[Russcoles]

I have 3 bikes, the most modern of which was made when I was 10 and the oldest was made 8 years before me. I have not however owned any of them for more than a couple of years. Good bikes pass from owner to owner.
If you take a look at bike racks in any major city it will not take long to find a Raleigh Twenty for example. These are small wheeled shopping bikes made in vast quantities in the seventies. They are not there because there are lots of pensioners on shopping trips, they are there because they are so well built that they have survived in peoples garages so well that you can pick one up on ebay for next to nothing and use it for cheap transportation without high risk of having it stolen. If you look on ebay you will see many other examples of old bikes for sale, these bikes are lasting lifetimes but not with one person as peoples needs change.

[al_yrpal]

Met someone yesterday who has a Reg Harris racer, he is not cycling currently. His Dad bought it for him when he was a kid and had to make monthly payments for it. I didnt know that such a bike existed?

Al

[thirdcrank]

I suspect that the most likely examples of bikes lasting a lifetime will be roadsters of the Raleigh Superb type which are more likely to have been used for utilty transport rather than by cycling enthusiasts.

Personally I do use a cycle for "utility transport" and so will many other "enthusiasts", witness the number of people here who mention commuting and shopping by bike. Just because someone uses a bike for other than weekend leisure jaunts doesn't mean they're not an enthusiastic cyclist.

I'm sure you are right. I nearly linked to Sheldon Brown's stuff for a picture of a Superb and I doubt if many people were more enthusastic about cycling than he was. I've a roadster for utility riding but it 'only' dates from 1997.

Nevertheless, I'll stand by what I said in the context of the OP. I'd be the last to say that no cycling enthusiasts ride roadsters - just that the number of those who do is very small. This is about trends rather than individual choices. I'll even go so far as to add that although bikes of that type (not all Raleighs) were built to last forever and made in huge quantities, the number which continue to be ridden in the UK is relatively small when compared to how many were made. Although those bikes were made to last and haven't been affected by innovation to anything like the same extent as other types of bike, utility cycling in the UK has nose-dived since they were made. Also, the bike racks in York, for example, where utility cycling has remains popular, are full of bikes used for utility riding but I see few older roadsters in use. (And more's the pity.) I have a vague idea that things are different in some parts of the former British Empire where cycling remains a main transport mode.

Still in the context of the OP, I'd suggest that there is more evidence of the consumer society in the pedal cycle than there is of the exploitation of its "green" possibilities.

[meic]

True, you can pick up a quality 531 tubed bike for a tenner or worse still find one at the tip!

On the other hand it is good for us poor people, truly affordable quality transport.

[Geriatrix]

We're keen to show both people's longstanding passion for cycling and the fact that if you buy a quality bike it can last you a lifetime.
bryony[at]ethicalconsumer.org

I think that prevalence of bike theft will skew your quest. I had a Raleigh with a good frame which I loved and would probably still own were it not for the fact that someone else liked it as much as me.

[thirdcrank]

meic

I'm sure you are right too, but why do bikes which some might regard as being perfectly OK, and often built to more durable standards than present stuff end up at the tip?

Either, people turn out not to be so enthusiastic about cycling as they thought they were or, they have an older bike with hard-to-find parts (5/6 speed) rear triangle, 27" wheels or whatever and they lack the experience, £££, garage full of ancient spares, or the sheer cussedness needed to get it back on the road.

Apart from that. it's a throwaway society and bikes get thrown away like so much else while there's still plenty of mileage in them.