AN EX-COLLEAGUE FROM WHEN WORKING IN the modern bike press once asked if the old bike world ever became boring. “After all, there’s nothing new; no exciting new models, no use of a new technology to research and report about.” I laughed aloud while vehemently shaking my head. But then I had to ask myself: “They have a point. Why is this world of oily, out-of-date, and often unreliable old hacks as much fun as we find them?”
You, the readers, rightly make it quite clear that old bike magazines should be about old bikes – the metal. Selfishly, to bring this to you I experience that thrill of the model and its history, the riding impression, the restoration, added to by meeting the people behind the bikes, their reasons for loving them, and the continuing fun that old bikes provide them. When meeting up with someone to photograph and talk about their bike, you are often invited into their home, shown family photographs where the bike has become part of the family, of their history. You are allowed into their lives, their past. You feel the reason behind a collection, where the virtues or qualities of a model can tempt someone.
