Your first "REAL" road bike?

[jghall]

White Olmo with black anodized Galli components. One sweet looking bike, and a nice ride too.

[Steevo]

Missed this thread as well... too busy lurking.

My first real road bike and my first big purchase - wrenched in a shop all summer to buy it. A 1975 Bridgestone Kabuki Diamond Tourer - a model towards at the top end of their line.

All the nice Japanese parts of that era...

Cro-moly butted steel with chrome head lugs.

Sun Tour V-luxe ders. w/ those great SunTour ratcheting Power Shifters clamped to the DT.

Sugino Mighty Comp crank - still looks good.

Gran Compe center pulls,

Sakae bars & SR Royal stem, etc.

I still have it, but it needs to be refurbished. I keep thinking about setting it up for slow rides, trips to the local store, family riding, etc. Maybe new 700x35 rims, or even 650B if they can work. For now, it sits in the garage, and has a warm place in my heart.

[stevep]

i have had a lot of nice bikes. my first was a wretched pos schwinn varsity that i bought to commute to college on... maybe 5 miles each way.
i hated that bike. it was awful heavy and slow. finally was stolen and i was happily without a bike for a year and a half...
lucky for me that i took another swing at something better.
i got into the action with a raleigh grand prix... and was hooked by that bike.

[rounder]

My previous bikes were always ridearoundtheneighborhood specials, but in 1989 got a Scwinn for daughter when she was old enough. The next week, bought a Schwinn Traveler which was better than what I had before. Then the Tour de Trump came to Baltimore followed by Greg's win over Laurent Fignon at the TdF several months later. Flipped out and went immediately to the lbs and bought a Bianchi Brava in dark blue with celeste trim and Suntour GPX components, and sold the Schwinn. Rode it regularly until I got a Serotta in 1992. Kept the Bianchi until recently when I gave it to my nephew, who needed a bike for his new job as a messenger.

[dnades]

Bought a bright yellow Recordman lugged frame with polished lugs. Cottered crank.. Had it until a friend who wasn't watching where he was going and put it into the back of a parked car. Age 13 or so. Loved that bike. First real road bike. Upgraded to a Vista Silver Shadow(250$$ from the local bike shop)Lot of scratch for me at the time. No idea on the components- this is 1980 or so. Rode that all over Vermont (no car) up till about age 16/17. Even had a head on collision with my neighbor's car in a parking lot(he got it fixed for me even though I gave him a heart attack). What luck! I was avoiding a red light by cutting through the parking lot. I think my parents sold it when I went to college. I saw one locked to parking meter last year. Araya tubing. Kind of a sad looking thing. It was a great bike. I remember my girlfriend at that time rode a Huffy which must've weighed 35-40lbs. Then she bought a Motobecane. That was her first 'real' bike. She got tired of always being behind me so she got a lighter bike than mine. I guess my butt only had so much mileage in it. More bikes since then but that Recordman was real sharp for an eighth(sp?) grader.

[dutri42590]

My frist road bike was a 1989 peugeot triatalon.i got it in 2001.and it all started there. this was my dads old bike so i got it and still have it today.
JPR

[William]

Tell us, we would like to know what that first steed was.




William

[97CSI]

Metallic red Nishiki International with full Suntour gear in '75. Here's one like it in metallic blue. Wish I had been smart enough to hold on to it. At least I have been with the '87 Paramount.

[weiwentg]

no pics, but I had a Giant TCR 0 frameset, I think the 2001 model. red and black. very sharp. very racy. I won stage 3 of the Cat 4 Tour de Toona on that one in '03. then I had a bad crash and quit racing. I got a Colnago Dream Plus on closeout, then a few months later I had a car v bike, was severely injured, and got the Nago totalled (plus I was in the hospital for 2 weeks).

I ended up throwing the Giant out in frustration. it had been crashed multiple times and had a dent near the headtube. that was perhaps a foolish move. it was a good frame.

[giordana93]

first real race bike: 1983 Viner tretubi bought from Gus Betat & sons in New Orleans. Super bright blue with Italian flag proudly displayed in a few places, with the special New Orleans gearing: 44x52 Sugino mighty, in a mix of other Japanese componentry, except the Campy downtube shifters. it was supposed to be a 75x75 angles, a square 52x52. it was a handful bombing down the hills around Ithaca, NY, when I moved up there, and yeah, I had to change that 44! wish I'd never sold it.

[dave1215]

i bought one of these in 1986 to help me quit a pernicious smoking habit i had developed while serving in the united states peace corps:

[WadePatton]

Some sort of C'dale around 1986. 105 on the tube. It got me going.

And my current fixie is a Centurion painted 'zactly like the one above.

[C5 Snowboarder]

My 80ish Sekai - Still ride it even tho it is a heavy steel lugged frame - added the Brooks B-17 and widened the handlebars and added the Koolstop Salmon pads. Looks pretty good after 27 years.

[giordana93]

my best friend and first riding buddy bought a sekai the exact same week as I bought my Viner, and I almost mentioned it in my post above; same color as yours! his was completely chromed under the paint, so it looked brilliant in the sun. tange prestige I think?

[jpw]

Real? Who knows, but my first 'racer' was a Raleigh Arena 5 speed in blue from the Raleigh factory shop in Nottingham, England. My Grandmother bought it for me as a 13th birthday present - she worked for the company...when it was still a real bicycle company.