The 1970 to 1975 "bike boom" in the USA was focused heavily on males in the age 16 to age 30 bracket. Due to the "Baby Boom", there was a huge number of males in America in that age group. Just as EVERY guy who is 19 in 2007 must have an iPhone (or at least an iPod), every guy was was 19 in 1972 thought he needed a ten-speed bike. Needed to HAVE one, not necessary RIDE one.,

There was a bit of the "Cabbage Patch" doll about the whole deal: fifty million ten speed bikes sold in five years, yet by 1977, you could ride down a country road all day and not see a single other person on a bike. And, among those fifty million road bikes, the Schwinn Varsity was actually BETTER than the average, in terms of its build quality, components, hubs, brakes, and durability. Most of the ten speed bikes sold at K-Mart, Woolco, Sears, and Ace Hardware were of much lesser quality...some were sheer junk.

The "elite" ten speed bikes of that era that are treasured today (Reynolds 531 frame and fork, all Campy drivetrains) were never more than 1% or 2% of the market.

The good things about the "boom" was that 10% or so of the folks who bought a bike during the boom stuck with cycling as a regular part of their life. That "core" group of customers made possible the rise of companies such as Trek and Cannondale, focused on higher quallity bikes.


Looking at UK publications, I get the impression that THEIR biggest bike boom was 1985 to 1995, with the advent of mountain bikes. The UK had LOTS of utility bikes and a good number of ten-speed road bikes, but the mountain bike reached millions of folks who might not want to ride in urban traffic, or who wanted a tougher sort of bike when they did ride in urban traffic.