I'd rather see Coker do Snakebellies or Comp IIs.
It would be nice to have a vintage tire I could actually ride around on.

...for me, the hobby is about being able to ride my vintage bikes.

how much new stuff can you put on a vintage bike before the bike is no longer vintage?

Things that degrade with time should be exempt. You wouldn't get in a 29 Ford on the hiway running tires made in 1929. I have a dozen or so 70s bikes that I had or would have had a front Aggressor on but I'm not going to go on ebay and pay $200 for one, I don't have much more than $200 invested in all of them together.

Valid points on both sides..

thank God Cheng Shen knobbies are still being made..

My 70's bikes would look pretty dumb with Wal-mart blackwall comp III's

[ June 07, 2006, 04:13 PM: Message edited by: Astrodamus ]

The only non-vintage parts I want on my vintage rides are tires. Everything else is relatively easy to find and/or safe to use.

Don't confuse "easy to find" with "affordable". This is still very much a blue collar hobby and I think most of us would readily welcome reproductions (appropriately marked as such) of soft goods such as tires or grips.

The predictions that copies/fakes will devalue original artifacts has not come to fruition, at least not that I've seen.

easy and affordable = nos agressor at the Ann Arbor swap in April, there were at least 10 other BMX collectors present....10 bucks.

the problem with old agressors it that the sidewalls crack real bad. i see that as a problem. down here in Texas, i haven't seen any that do NOT have cracks.

"down here in Texas, i haven't seen any that do NOT have cracks"

ain't that a country song title?

Yes, have seen Aggressors on the bay but at 150 + for a tire but I know Tim got a buy it now for $100 which is a deal compared to what has happened after that auction about six months ago.

If people are willing to pay for it then that's what the market is. You don't see $150 + Cheng Shins because they are still being made, hence the low cost.

You could take the Mongoose stickers that were reproduced by Mongoose/Vintage. Unless you are a "true" collector with all original items, others will buy the repro which down the road drives down the price of the originals over time. Also like reproducing money, technology is allowing for better repro's to be made advertised as orginal, which is wrong.

Saw some Mongoose pads on another thread and they look original, but are not. With more of those flooding the market that drives down the cost of both the repro's and the originals unless there is a serious flaw in the repro, basic supply/demand.

If you have the $$$ you can have all orginal parts as long as you know what the heck you are buying.

J.T.

P.S. if someone has an Aggressor for sale, let me know :-)

I have blue and black aggressors if you need some. I need a few small parts but not money nor outrageous trades for them. They are NOS still have release powder on them....

Just to clarify, we are talking about the 20 x 2.125 Carlisle Aggressors used on the front in the 70s and early 80s, the squareish tires, not any other tires made by Carlisle later on.

same guys who toss 3 or 4 bills after a decent crankset cry about 1 or 2 bills for a cool rare tire.

The notion of Coker Tire becoming involved would be a pipe dream with the diameter of pipe being less than a millimeter. Having been involved with their muscle car tires I can tell you what they told me in so many words when I complained that their Polyglas tires have 1970 lettering instead of 1969...
Besides the fact that it would cost tens of thousands of dollars just to change the lettering, they claim that even with the limited availability of NOS tires (at a grand per) people will still value the originals over a reproduction. Some of this has to do with DOT numbers having to be applied to their repros and not found on the originals. Still, with the large spread in price between the two one would think theres enough "small fortune" in it for them...but NO. You would be lucky not to get laughed at on the phone proposing a BMX tire. Having recently patented an invention I have gotten the short course in approaching manufacturers with the idea of licensing or actually producing something. They really don't care about what you can retail an item for or how cool it is...the question is how much can THEY make on it and for how long and cost multipliers and other garbage like that.
I would agree that repros made by the original manufacturer from the same molds and materials will devalue NOS parts in most cases...that is if the fakes and forgeries don't get there first.

Having an "old" NOS tire is really on a build is really just an ego stroke!!!

Many people on this site like to parallel this hobby to the Muscle car hobby, see below for how the muscle car hobby views the issue of tires. "MUSCLE CAR MENTALITY"

All those old tires have date codes molded into the rubber. reason: manufacturing quality control and also inventory control (first in first out....spoilage). Sooooo, if you have say, a 1978 Torker with an NOS Aggressor that has a date code from 1981, it is not any better than having a repro or still currently produced old design tire.

If having NOS is that important to someone, than so should the date codes on the NOS parts: on tires, brakesets, brake cables, seats, etc. "MUSCLE CAR MENTALITY"

I am not sure if the Stingray, balloon tire guys are even so aware of the date code issues on NOS parts...but they should be!!!!!! Tim, any insight????

Personally, I could care less about using "repro" on most any bike I build. Because I build the bikes for myself to keep. Not to sell. So if the bike as a whole matches the way I envisioned the build, it makes me smile!!! Of course in the case of very very very rare or high end builds I probably would TRY to go with the "Muscle Car Mentality".

The Muscle car mentality also heavily weigh the option of very nice used, and/or propery restored parts to maintain the date code issue!!!!!!

[ June 09, 2006, 09:26 AM: Message edited by: Greg_Hanna ]

Of course the real thing is always going to be better, but to me (and a lot of others, apparently), a nicely produced reproduction tire would mean being comfortable actually riding a vintage bike instead of just looking at it. What's the point of collecting these goofy old bikes if you can't (or won't) even cruise around the block on them? It's all about memories for me and the memories become more vivid as the wheels spin and the cranks creak. Riding vintage bikes may be a foreign concept to some "collectors", but I'm in a foreign land (France) right now so take it. For that matter, how is there not a vintage class at Rockford by now? Let's line up the mono-shocks!
At the same time, I know enough about molding and production to know that no one in their right (business) mind is going to open new molds for even a few thousand tires and if they did, no one of us is going to pay big money for a repro. Unless, of course, some random company in Carlysle, PA, still has some old Aggressor molds.... Which is why Randy even started this post in the first place. We've just come full circle, I suppose. Sorry.

obtw...

when i finally changed out the original tires on my 1995 Viper, i kept them. they were no longer manufactured by 2000 and i was cognisant of the fact that they will be highly prized tires in 2020, even with only 50% tread left.

obsess much?

j/k

that's a wealth of info there..

Removing factory tires at the time of purchase is common among car entusiasts today. Orig. tires, for say an 86 or 78 Corvette, REALLY enhance the price someone can get for their low mileage well cared for specialty vehicle.

Tim, glad you've applied the date code mentality to BMX, it's something that's just a detail, but with significant builds is very respectable.

I'm switching to Cheng Shins on my VW.

I'm running Comp II black walls on my Volvo.