karmat

Gorgeous! One of my favorite bikes.

Karl

Mike Mills

It seems to me that dck's Schwinn is pre-boom.

During the boom, I started with a purple Royce Union. I graduated to a white Rolls. I copied my friend and bought a Raleigh Grand Prix (it was entirely different than his). I rode the Grand Prix extensively and upgraded everything on it. Then, in the summer of 1975 (or was it 1974), I bought a Bob Jackson frame (by mail order from a retailer in Ohio) and put all the upgraded components from the Grand Prix onto the Jackson.

sailorbenjamin

Seems like every bike I own is from 71 or 72, though today I picked up this thing, seems to be from the bike boom of the '90s;

Roll-Monroe-Co

I don't think that's the boom to which OP was referring.

Kommisar89

To each his own I guess. To me it's sort of like comparing a '72 Camaro to a '87 Camry. Apples and oranges.

pastorbobnlnh 

WOW Ben! Can you show us better pictures or start a new thread?

sonatageek

Well the bike boom bike I always wanted was a Varsity but that $100 price was out of my and my families reach. My first adult bike was a department store 10 speed (from a store called Grants that was going out of business so the noramlly $70 bike was $35) that I have for 5-6 years -- I think 5.75 of those years it was a rusty mess.

I have a Varsity in the basement waiting to get redone. I bought some Nashbar 27" alloy rims and plan on using the original hubs and building up my first set of wheels. That will be a next winter project.

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wrk101

One of my problems with the bike boom, in stock condition, the bikes were either really porky, or really expensive. The advent of the Japanese brought bikes priced in the low end of the 1970s, but competitive weight and component wise with the higher end bikes of the 1970s.

Many of us could not afford a decent bike in the 1970s. But for the same money in the 1980s, you could get a pretty nice bike. The low end bikes of the 1970s were just that, low end. To me, the comparison is more like a Chevy Vega to a Toyota Corolla. For the same money, the quality improvement and value was striking. Certainly a 1972 Camaro was a sweet car, but I didn't have that kind of money either.

Kommisar89

I see your point. At the time obviously that was very important as you wanted to get the best bike you could afford. But today as a collector, there isn't that much of a price difference and I'm not limited to stock components. Today, much as with bikes, I would take a nice clean old Vega over a Corolla...and drop a small block V-8 in it But the main thing is, during the boom I was a youngster at the peak of my cycling lust and in the 80's I was in my late teens - 20's and more worried about cars, motorcycles and girls. So by the 80's to get my cycling attention you would need a super high-end Italian steed with lots of chrome and Campagnolo parts (not that I could have afforded such a thing mind you, but that would have been what I would have lusted after). The cycling equivalent of a Corolla or Camry would not even have been on my radar. Which I suppose is part of what drives my choices - in the 70's you could buy an entry level European bike that had the same coolness factor (for teenagers like me and my buddies) as the high-end bikes by the same companies. They wore the same colors and decals and were usually made in the same factories and had the same brands of components. The Japanese bikes just didn't have that panache no matter how technically superior they might have been. (...and don't nobody go posting no picture of a 3Rensho or anything...you know that ain't the kind of Japanese bike we're talking about ).

cycleheimer

"store called Grants"

W.T. Grants? They went out in about 1976! Didn't they carry bikes like Kia, Iverson and the like?

cycleheimer

"One of my problems with the bike boom, in stock condition, the bikes were either really porky, or really expensive. The advent of the Japanese brought bikes priced in the low end of the 1970s, but competitive weight and component wise with the higher end bikes of the 1970s.

"Many of us could not afford a decent bike in the 1970s. But for the same money in the 1980s, you could get a pretty nice bike. The low end bikes of the 1970s were just that, low end. To me, the comparison is more like a Chevy Vega to a Toyota Corolla. For the same money, the quality improvement and value was striking. Certainly a 1972 Camaro was a sweet car, but I didn't have that kind of money either."

I used to regularly ride 200+ miles per week in the '70s, and owned quite a few bikes. I found the Japanese bikes I rode to be smooth riding, dependable, easy to maintain and affordable. They were nicely made...Fujis and Kabukis were my favorites...and I never had a problem selling them when I was ready for a change. I liked the Sun Tour gears, Dia-Compe brakes, Belt leather saddles, Araya and Ukai rims, Sun Shine quick release hubs, and some of the nice paint jobs these bikes came with. I also worked in a shop back then and used to find some of the European bikes to be a nightmare to work on, especially on the lower-end. The workmanship wasn't that great and I didn't like the way they rode as much. The best value then was with the Japanese bikes IMHO. I do remember how we frowned on the Taiwanese-made bikes when they started coming in, probably the same way fans of European bikes frowned on Japanese bikes earlier, so to each his own I guess. We did sell quite a few used Peugeot UO8s "back in the day"...people really did fall for the decals on those bikes...especially the UO8s painted white. I did have a custom Campy equipped bike that I built around a French "mystery" frame. It was a fantastic & dependable ride, but I could have bought quite a few Japanese bikes for what that cost.