"In this Classic Rendezvous mailing list, a discerning few bicycle enthusiasts celebrate the hand made craft objects that are vintage lightweight bicycles.
We see the demise of the hand crafted bicycle as a sad turn of events.. Indeed our society is rapidly discovering fast and robotic means of manufacturing everything we use in our lives. The bicycle, since it's invention, has represented a sublime blending of function and art.
The Classic Rendezvous list focusses on bicycles made from the beginning of the Twentieth Century, up to about 1983. We also consider "on topic" makers of very fine bicycles that can be seen as "Carrying the torch" for classic style cycling....New age welded, injection molded, or glued modern wonders belong in some other mail list, not this one! Ditto for mountain bikes & balloon tired bikes. Those items have merit, but they just do not belong here."
The words are Dales and we're all familiar with them. They specify that the list is concerned with vintage lightweights up to 1983. There's an allowance for "keepers of the flame" whose bikes carry on the long tradition of hand-built machines.
How all those "modern" bikes, that would suddenly find themselves within the time frame if the qualifying date moved forward every year, could possibly be seen in the same light is beyond me. In fact, they couldn't without a comprehensive re-writing of the above criteria.
Let's leave it at 1900-1983, Baylis, Sachs, et al. If you're interested in the later machines then start another list. It's bad enough reading about Italian bike boom machines that bore the breeks off me without the prospect of wading through messages about Treks, Canondales and God knows what else.
Bruce, for whom "vintage" means pre-1950,
Dundee
Scotland