Originally Posted by
Murray Missile
I bought that issue when it came out! I was a Junior in HS riding the wheels off my Raleigh Grand Prix I had just got for my 16th birthday. As I recall I was fairly disappointed in it, the book not the bike, but cycling magazines were very rare on the magazine rack of the corner drug store in small Midwest farm towns so I grabbed everything I could get my hands on.
I had Eugene Sloane's book back then, which I actually still have. Remembering the time period, I get a kick out of this one. Petersen pushed out a schlocky book to make a quick buck. I can just picture guys in loud plaid sport jackets approving the project. The "catalog" section is a real "hoot". ..AMF, Columbia, Murray, Huffman, Rollfast, Royce-Union, Sears, and Hedstrom kid's bikes!! They did also have Schwinn, Raleigh, Peugeot, Cinelli, and Atala. I did like the photos of Ray Reese's Raleigh, which he rode around the world in 1971. His bar-end shifters look custom made. The nice looking woman on the cover has got to be around 70 now!!! BTW, I was riding the wheels off my Schwinn Varsity back then. The Raleigh Grand Prix was somewhat of an exotic, high-end import to the average guy in 1972!