Originally Posted by
The Golden Boy
Jim- what are the other American bicycle manufacturers that produced a large volume of high quality bikes across the lower-mid to high and ultra high level spectrum?
...
I know of none. But then, Trek came along when my only involvement with cycling was
riding, not paying attention to builders or even component makers except for when I needed something (like when I upgraded the derailleurs on my UO-8 to Suntour). I couldn't afford much then anyway. An entire generation of bike culture passed me by. That was intentional because it struck me that, to judge by the pics I saw in magazines and the faces I saw on other riders, few people in cycling actually
enjoyed what they were doing. When I finally returned to paying attention I found that Shimano had invented a new language whose words were foreign to me, like Ultegra or Tiagra or Exage, and sometimes using 4-digit number to replace words. My later knowledge of Trek was from seeing a friend riding a TREK!TREK!TREK!TREK!TREK! At least I think that's what it said. I may have left out a few TREK!'s because I couldn't count that high. I learned of Specialized when they started selling 1 1/8" and then 1" high-pressure tires as compared to the 70psi Michelins or Hutchinsons I was familiar with. Much later (and even now) I noticed SPECIALIZED!SPECIALIZED!SPECIALIZED!SPECIALIZED!SPECIALIZED!SPECIALIZED! bikes.
I prefer the elegance of the classic European designs, and of course similar design regardless of country. I never saw an elegant Trek until I met some BF members.