Retro bike show honours bygone era
A group of cycling mad mates have come together to showcase bike riding from a bygone era.
More than 200 steel-frame bikes, all dating before the 1990s, were on display at the inaugural Retro Rouse in Freeman’s Bay in central Auckland on Saturday.
Principal organiser Shane Goodwin said with so many incredible bikes being stashed away in garages, he and four friends thought it was worth bringing them all together.
Goodwin said many of the bikes reflected cycling in the 1970s and 80s, the era in which Goodwin grew up riding in.
‘‘I think it’s the greatest era of the sport, it’s a lot more real than it is today,’’ he said.
‘‘The way the bikes were made, all the craftsmanship and componentry, they weren’t massproduced.’’
Organiser Steve Thompson has collected more than 90 retro bikes and had about 30 of them on display at Retro Rouse.
He said bikes from previous eras tended to have distinctive designs as they didn’t need to meet particular requirements for racing.
‘‘They all look the same now, you look around here today and they’re all pretty different and that’s the beauty of it,’’ Thompson said.
‘‘In the 80s and 90s you could build whatever you wanted, there were basically no restrictions. So that was the difference, you could have anything.’’
Thompson said this could be seen in retro features such as small front wheels and curved top tubes.
Goodwin’s wife Carmen said the niche vintage bike market was on the rise.
‘‘This event is really a celebration of an era of cycling before carbon fibre.’’
Nostalgic bike lovers came from all over New Zealand with some having even come from the South Island.
One of the most rare bikes on the display was the Lotus Type 108, of which only 15 were made worldwide.
Apparel was also featured, with authentic woollen race jerseys from the pre-1990s era.
Goodwin has been working with Auckland Council to stage the event on a much larger scale in the future, with the Cloud on the city’s waterfront being discussed as a possible venue.