T-Mar

This is an easily correlation to make but the bicycle boom started a couple of years prior to the oil embargo and outlasted it.

Bandera

It was even easier listening to the slightly panicked customers queued-up in our shop like desperate lemmings describing waiting in interminable lines at the gas station for the rationed 10 gallons and buying anything with two wheels. We once had a shouting bidding war over an undersized Varsity between two gents who had to removed from the premises.

Maybe you had to be there.....

-Bandera

T-Mar

I was there. I worked in and later managed a shop during the bicycle boom. Undoubtedly, the oil embargo had an impact but it was not responsible for the bicycle boom. The 3 peak years for the boom were 1972-1974. The gas stations lines occurred over roughly a 6 month period spanning the last quarter of 1973 and the first quarter of 1974, yet bicycle sales were 14 million in 1972, the year prior to the embargo. The vast majority of the 15 million sales in 1974 took place prior to the gas lineups and the they were over prior to the start of the peak bicycle buying season of 1974, which still managed 14 million sales. Berto acknowledges that the oil embargo may have extended the boom somewhat but he certainly doesn't credit the boom to the embargo.

Trakhak

Back in about 1976, I had a chat with the warehouse manager at a bike parts distributor in New Haven, CT. He said that the owners of the business, in their wisdom, stocked up on tens of thousands of Huret Allvit rear derailleurs, thinking that sales would continue skyrocketing.

He said, 'They're up there in the office moaning that they lost 3 million dollars last year. I told them, "You haven't lost 3 million! You never had it, so you didn't lose it!" '

Bandera

The gross unit sales reported in the trade papers don't address The Mix.

Being responsible for our inventory management the "lightweight 10 speed" was dominating our unit sales from '70 through '74 when demand fell off and we shifted $ from that category, eliminated Stingray/Crate and put BMX on the floor. Total unit volume went down slightly in '75/'76 while gross profit per unit went up with accessory sales booming. It was BMX not the waning "Bike Boom 10 Speed" that was driving unit sales volume for us from late '74 until the MTB came along. No idea how anyone else ran their business but that's how it was in our shop.

The high-end road & track inventory was really an expensive hobby, I should have nixed it spent more time riding my bike and bought a new car instead.
20/20 hindsight.

-Bandera

ramzilla

I remember the time my brother and I both ordered bikes from a little shop in Atlanta's Emory Village area. We were in highschool. It was 1972. We had to pay about $250 each in advance. He ordered a Bottecchia Professional & I got a Peugeot PX10. When the bikes arrived we just dragged the boxes home & put them together ourselves. We were way too poor to pay for assembly. Anyhow, the bikes were fantastic rides. Mine weighed 21 lbs. brothers Bottecchia weighed in at an amazing 20 lbs. About two or three years later the bike shop folded. It was replaced by a high end stereo place. Which, also folded around 1980. I think Emory owns the place now. They pretty much bought up everything in the neighborhood by now.

Darth Lefty 

Born in '77, it's hard for me to imagine the baby-boomer popularity of those older Schwinn bikes. In my childhood, riding around the neighborhood at age 5-6, we knew nothing of BMX racing, but we knew any new bike was a BMX and anything with a banana seat and high handlebars was obviously a hand-me-down and/or girl bike. We were unruly little snots in our Star Wars t-shirts and cutoffs, and the 1960's catalog shots of boys in collars and combed hair and brown pants posing with their Stingrays just look alien. Also it makes me note that even for little kids there's strong sexism in the products and their marketing. I sure don't remember any girl's BMX bikes, though there must have been some. I definitely remember the arrival of BMX freestyle and foot pegs, percolating east from the CA coast and out into the AZ suburbs, around the time I was 8 or 9.

nlerner

cycleheimer

It is easy. It was "now" at the time, and most kids didn't think 3-speed Raleigh's and balloon tire PeeWee Herman were cool. The uncoolest thing to do was put ape hanger stingray bars and a banana seat on a Raleigh 3-speed or balloon tire bike with fenders. The banana seats, btw, gave you something comfy to sit on when hanging out on the street with your friends. The Schwinn Stingrays were indestructible, so they didn't get broken often, so you didn't get yelled at for breaking them. You could do jumps on them, play bicycle polo, commute to school, and hang out on them. The orange crates, lemon peelers, choppers, Sears knockoffs and the like with sissy bars, little front wheels, suspension, stick shifts, and whatever reminded you of cars and motorcycles, and that was neat to many babyboomers when they were 9, 10, 11 or 12. "Back in the day", my father told me he couldn't believe it when he saw 14 and 15 yeasr olds riding them. Then we later went off to college with our beloved lightweight 10-speed " racing" bikes. Now we ride hybrids and comfort bikes with suspension seat posts.

bulldog1935

For my generation, I always think of the Varsity as the high school bike, and the Grand Prix as the college bike.
Though my HS bike was a burnt-orange Wards Open Road - I wasn't too disappointed in college when it was stolen and I bought my new Grand Prix.

The Japanese were always enamored with French bikes, as they are still today (JIS square-spindle copied French).
CYCLES GRAND BOIS / ****************************************??

ollo_ollo

Don't know the details of what followed for the Torpado company, but I remember their owner was assassinated by the Red Brigade anarchists around the time of the 73-74 oil crisis. Could have been a factor in why the brand faded so quickly. Don

fietsbob

And some Brands ; all that is left of the Original Company, is the Name.

squirtdad

Per Classic Redezvous

Torpado bicycles date from 1908 and were especially noteworthy during the era of Coppi & Bartali. They were sponsors of major international teams and enjoyed the reputation commensurate with that level of involvement.

The Torpado line was imported into the USA in the 1970's & 80's by the Agrati-Garelli Corp. in South Carolina (along with Batavus) and therefore there are reasonable numbers of these bikes in the USA. The original Italian factory closed down not long after being bought by foreign owners in the late 1980s.

uncle uncle

Thanks for the background write up Chas... it's always fascinating to here about the bike biz in the 70's, as I was a mere pup thru the most of that decade.

T-Mar

I believe that you may be thinking of Emilio Bozzi, who owned the Frejus and Legnano brands. The family had little interest in the business after Emilio's 1974 assassination and it was mismanaged until the brands were purchased by Bianchi circa 1987. They sponsored the 1988 Alfa Lum pro team and Maurizio Fondriest won the 1988 World Championship road race on a Legnano. They were a significant market presence in North America at least through the boom when they were distributed by Thomas Avenia but seem to have had little market presence after that.

ollo_ollo

Right as usual T-Mar, shows how old age leaves us with "conflated" memories. My good memory of that time was how the owner of my local station in Seattle put up "NO GAS" signs, called his regular customers & told us to just leave our car parked by the service bays & come back a few hours later to settle up for 10 gallons at a time. That, my bike, plus car pooling to Boeing got me through without sitting in a line. Don