About

Reference & Rust is a buyer’s reference for people restoring and riding 1960s to 1990s road bikes. If you can name the part you’re hunting (a Campagnolo Nuovo Record rear derailleur, a Dura-Ace 7400-series crankset, a SunTour Superbe Pro derailleur, a Mavic rim, a Brooks B17), this site gives you one page for it: what it is, what it fits, how to identify and date it, and a plain-English list of what to verify before you bid.

The knowledge for vintage components is scattered. Velobase and Disraeli Gears hold the catalog scans and reference photos, Sheldon Brown’s articles cover the standards, and Bike Forums’ Classic & Vintage threads hold decades of collector experience, while a raw eBay search gives you none of it. We do the boring, useful work: keep a clean catalog of 36references, write down the collector knowledge that usually takes years to absorb (threading and clamp-size traps, date markings, reproduction and “NOS” tells) and point you at the current listings.

We don’t sell parts, and the links to eBay and Amazon carry no affiliate tracking: we earn nothing from them. We’re not affiliated with Campagnolo, Shimano, SunTour, Mavic, Cinelli, 3T or Brooks. See our methodology for how the pages are researched and our disclosure for how links, picks and photos work.

Reference & Rust is part of allbutnew, a set of buyer’s guides to secondhand gear. Have a part to sell? The “Have one to sell?” link on every reference page gets you an offer by email.