Old bikes are the best, they work, they look good, and they hold up no matter what you might throw at them yet I still find myself pining for whatever new parts show up on the radar of the big websites. I'll see a new setup or fancy design and "know" that it would not only completely change the way I ride but probably make me a smoother, stronger, faster, and even better looking rider.
I just got an old-school Huffy Mt Storm, I think it's from the 90s but none of the stickers have dates. it was kind of love at first sight, I was looking for a new trail bike and right on the first rack I saw this beautiful It's fantastic, all steel school bus yellow frame with the wishbone seatstay. I took the titanium handlebars off of an old build, set them up with the brake levers that I like, some new grips, and my little gear bag.
I love the aesthetics of these older bikes but between social media and the gear reviews on all the biking websites that I'm on every day, I still have to fight off the siren song of the newest, shiniest parts that dance across my screen. I liked the way that the bike felt overall but the shifting was less than smooth. Within the first few days, I had myself convinced I needed to put a whole new derailleur setup on it. I went into full research mode, scanned through a handful of different reviews spent a couple hours looking up the best derailleur, shifter, and cassette systems, what was compatible with what, and whittled those options down to the best bang for my buck and made a list of all the bits and bobs that I “needed”.
Luckily for me my local shop was closed and the weather was too bad to go out for a ride. In my boredom and impatience, I sat down and decided to poke around with the original derailleur. It turns out that old-school department store bikes actually had pretty solid parts. The derailleur was Shimano, close to 30 years old and a bit banged up, but it had full metal construction and it wasn't missing anything so with a quick cleanup and a willingness to learn, it worked perfectly. This seems to just be the cycle that I go through every time I get in a tinkering mood. I get excited to change something on one of my bikes, get tantalized by the newest and nicest thing on the market, and then realize that I like working on older parts, I like problem-solving and learning new skills and for the riding that I enjoy old parts are perfect.
Joseph 4/8/24