Originally Posted by Hondo6

During the early 1960s, the US tariff rate on imported bicycles was 30%. Dunno when that changed, but it dropped to11% and stayed there for quite a before 2019's selective increases.

I suspect that may have had something to do with suppressing both knowledge of and sales of better bikes from overseas, as well as US production of same. After all: if very few people know that a substantially better product is available overseas, who's going to demand local sources produce one equally as good? And if no one demands it, who's going to produce one? And who's going to buy the few imports available if they seem outrageously pricey?

Another damping factor I perceive was the US auto culture post-World War II. Cars were considered "cool"; bikes were for "kids". IMO that mindset didn't really start to change in the general US population until the mid/late 1960s, and then only among younger folks ("boomers") who now were getting jobs and able to afford to buy stuff. I believe it was Berto who postulated this as a primary driver of the early 1970s "bike boom" - and I think he nailed it there.

The only parts I think Berto missed was the effect of GI's rotating through Cold War US bases in Europe, and the mid/late 1960s environmental movements. Some GIs stationed in Europe were exposed to good European/UK bikes and brought knowledge of same home (and in some cased, the bikes too). But IMO it took a number of years of that until the US general population started to realize that (1) bikes weren't necessarily just for kids, and (2) high-end European bikes were much better than most locally-produced ones. The environmental movement added to that in the mid/late 1960s IMO.