tomorrow's classics

[OUTLAW]

ya know thats a good ?. one i can not answer, but i think it will be somthing along the same lines as we do today but with a different style unless someone builds from scratch and copies the old bikes. i know there will be alot of our bikes around in the near future. the ? is, will the new generation have an interest? i think some will as with all of us. a hard ? to answer.

Outlaw

 

[blacksheep]

This is a great topic. I had been thinking about starting a similar one myself.

My opinion is that there will be a good number of new bikes that will be the future classics. I think the big three desirable cruiser brands might be Electra, Felt, and Schwinn(bike shop models). Reason being that all three offer several models, with Electra and Felt having very distinct "stand out from the crowd" bikes. Schwinn has stuck with the classic look and offers different color combos each model year. Some of the other cruiser brands have nice looking bikes, but they just don't catch MY eye as much.

I've got three newer cruisers...'06 Electra Deluxe Relic, '97 Schwinn Rolling Rock, and an '06/'08 Trek Classic. Ten or twenty years from now I think my Relic and Rolling Rock may be desirable to a cruiser guy, but my Trek just doesn't have that classic look(reason it has been slightly klunked).

I'm sure nobody was thinking way back when that their Black Phanton or Luxury Liner would be as desirable today as they are.

 

[Slick Rick]

I have always been a Cruiser guy and I can tell you from experience, like a fashion trend or fad, the popularity of Cruisers comes and goes.My Cruisers have never lost popularity in my eyes no matter what the current trend is.One question I feel fairly confident in answering is, what Cruisers will be popular in the future? Any thing with a Cantilever frame! This one came out in 1939 and has not shown any evidence of becoming extinct at any time since its conception.As men we just like "Curvy" things! Woman, cars, bicycles, I don't foresee that changing either, that being said, the cantilever frame Cruiser will be around long after we are not. :mrgreen: Later & PEACE!!!

 

[roadmaster]

slick rick said it best, anything with a cantilever frame will be popular or classic, down the road and even today. my oldest bike is my 59' roadmaster skyrider and my newest a 09' huffy cranbrook. love them both especially the amf, but i do like how the 09' is new, but looks old, having that timeless canti frame. and i think specific brands will refect what will be concidered worth more. i gotta agree brands like felt and electra will really be worth alot in the future, especially if they go under between now and then, and lower brands like huffy, urban and xyz will be on the lower end of the scale. even my 08' lajolla may be valuable in th efuture even though it is entry level and cheap, i don't see awhole lot of cruisers out there with aluminum frames.

 

[dos cruiser]

You I started reading this tread and strarted thinking, I know people who collect only cruisers, some only road, yet I've met guys who collect track bikes. I personally like them all, but the ? was what will be the classic of tomorrow?
I was talking to a girl I sold a bike to last night and she said this is the type of bike I grow up on that's way I love it. So to answer the ? I say look at what the young people are riding today of we like the bikes we grow up with that is what will be the classics.
My favorite is my 1949 B.F.Goodrich DX, my brother and bought one at the police action when I was 8 for $3, we fight over who owned it, who was going to ride it and who dented it, so our parants made us sell it. Our mom split the $10 and we spent it. The classic of tomorrow is the one you love today.

 

[Uncle Stretch]

If anybody had a clue there would be some guy sitting on a boatload of bluebirds. Just think Hertz auctioned off all the mustang gt 500's they had and nobody wanted them . They sold them in blocks of 10 for $1200 a piece and the salesman that sold the most got a free trip to Hawaii. Gee wonder if we could pick a keeper for tomorrow.....As i look around my garage there is not one gt mustang...so better not use my input on this topic.

 

[blacksheep]

Dollar value aside...which of the current cruisers are going to be the ones we're saying "I wish I still had my ____." or "I remember seeing a ____ in the bike shop. Wish I'd bought one."?

 

[MadMick]

History shows us that for something to be considered a true popular classic it must, in addition to being simply good design, have been mass produced, ie, made in enough numbers that enough people remember it from their earlier years for it to have some personal resonance for a big section of society, or for a whole generation. And, critically, it must have been mass produced for enough of them to survive to feed the interest. The Mustang is a perfect example along with the VW Bug, 32 Henry (and for us Brits) the Austin Mini. The resurgence of interest in eighties BMX and more recently 80's and 90's Mountainbikes will continue I think. I'd be looking for something with some historical significance like an early Ritchey, MK1 or MK2 Stumpjumper, early Rockhopper.... Ti Zaskar...... Offroad Proflex... though none of these except the Rockhopper had the production numbers to really become a popular classic.

Trouble is, as an earlier poster said, the cantilever frame is a thing of beauty in itself so a straight tube bike will never have the same draw.

Gotta be a Dyno if you want a modern canti frame with good looks and rarity tho. Harley Veloglide? Electra Fink?

 

[Wildcat]

Look at classic cars. The 50's/60's remain sought after because the stying never goes out of fashion.

Same with our bikes, the most sought after now will remain sought after. Newer bikes can mimic the classic design, and they will sell well, but the style will remain as the draw. The 50's and 60's cruisers will remain the most sought after by collectors and riders. If riders can't find a good one at a decent proce, they will buy a repro.

Notice that almost none of the 80's cars are collectible. No creativity in the designs imo. The bodies looked like stamped out parts of metal designed to cut costs. When I was a kid in the 60's, you could identify a car's make and model from a long way away.

For the last 25 years they all look similar.

 

[deorman]

The government mandates and economic shenanigans that ruined all but the most expensive cars may someday ruin bikes as well. Won't surprise me. Disappoint me yes, but surprise me, no.

 

[gashuffy63]

My bet would be that Waterfords will be highly sought after decades from now, in my opinion they are classics the moment that the paint has dried on the handmade frames and the last compontent hung. Beautiful bikes.

 

[JoKeR63]

Just about everything being made right now is completely soulless.
And copying cool stuff from the past is great for us old codgers but does nothing for this generation.
We've had about a decade of no identity, no special cars, or music, or anything positive to mark the new millenia.
In order for it to be classic it helps to have mattered, Schwinn is a cultural icon, can that be said of an Electra, or Nirve?
I'm afraid there shall be few new bikes go classic, hopefully I'll be wrong.

 

[Bendix]

this is really an interesting question. it seems to me if it's old enough EVERYTHING eventually becomes a collectible. style doesn't seem to be a deciding factor- vintage track bikes are the plainest of the plain but some collectors go nuts over them. performance isn't important- krates are some of the least practical bikes ever produced yet they command a premium price. scarcity is a non issue- schwinn made a gazillion bikes and even the most pedestrian 70's model flips in an instant on craigslist. even quality has little or no bearing on what becomes a bicycle classic- remember, just like today a pre-war parent often had to choose between a plain, high quality bike shop bike and a lower quality, flashier bike with more 'features' from a department store, today both are sought after......i actually think about this a lot as i'm repairing and assembling a seemingly never ending downward spiral of cheap clones. i know it will happen because apparently it always does, but with few exceptions i just can't imagine anybody being exited to find a 2009 mass produced bike in a dumpster 50 years from now. what are those few exceptions? heck, i don't know :?

 

[Wildcat]

I think the big problem is the way new stuff is created. The classic bikes were created with more emphasis on style and design, although costs were part of it. Look at the Bowdens and Phantoms, etc. I'm sure more profit was made off the basic bikes back then, but they still made the great ones.

Now, cost and marketability is first and foremost, with creative design on the backburner. The manufacturers have a lot more bills to pay before they see a profit, so it's not all their fault. You'll never see a quality frame for the price like the Chicago Schwinns.

 

[karfer67]

i still think a schwinn cruiser 7 with the nexus and painted cream wheels will be worth something one day. too bad i ratted mine but it got stollen and when i got her back she needed to be changed. other than that i would say some of the dynos, or felts because they are short runs