Originally Posted by
Lemond1985
Sorry, for casting aspersions, my bad.
It's just those Raleighs were super-expensive in 1970's dollars, so a person had to be either rich, or an extreme cycling fanatic to spend what a middle class family survived on for a whole month back then for food, housing, everything, ... for a bicycle? I knew lots of rich kids back then, but no fanatics to that degree, so I assumed the former. Those were strange times though, certain things actually cost more then than they do now, like home appliances, TV's, and vacuum cleaners. All of that stuff was made in USA back then, with union labor.
How did a 15 y/o kid even get the idea that a Super Course was worth that kind of money?
No problems, I was an "odd" kid I guess.
When I was 13 my sister and her husband came out to the ranch to visit and had two 26" steel rimmed his and hers Montgomerey Ward 10 speeds. She asked if I wanted to go try them out, so I got on my brother in-laws bike, she got on hers, and we went out for a 3 mile bike ride. Man that thing was fast! Compared to my American Eagle (pre-Nishiki) Sting Ray copy, that is. A year later I had saved up enought to buy a 27" wheeled steel rimmed Montgomerey Ward 10 speed. I found Bicycle magazine at the super market. My mom got me a subscription for Christmas.There was a Schwinn store in Madera, maybe they had a World Traveller. I drooled over the Paramounts in the catalog. My mom would drive to Fresno maybe once a month for something, I talked her into stopping by Big Wheel on Blackstone (@straightblock, jump in and correct me if needed). They had half the 1974 Raleigh lineup in the shop. There was the magic number decaled on many of them - 531. I had to have.
If I were to calculate it out, each 120 lb haybale I fed to a bunch of hungry heifers that summer put 2.3 cents in my pocket.