Bike Shop Rip Van Winkle
 

I worked in a (now defunct) glorious Local Bike Shop from 1991-1996, during the boom years of early mountain bike and hybrids. It was a small operation (2-4 employees during my tenure), so I was both a wrench and a salesman. I owned a 1989 Fuji Sagres SP "sport touring" road bike and a bonded carbon/aluminum Trek 8700 mountain bike, which I raced occasionally in local races. I operated a "SAG Wagon" for a local Metric Century, and road my bikes as often as I could. Then I moved to some larger urban areas and largely lost my interest in cycling, only to jump back in this year after a 20 year absence.


My early 2018 trips to area bike shops had the disorienting feeling of Rip Van Winkle's decades long slumber. I have naturally gravitated toward the C&V forum here just because the bikes are from the era I know, so it feels more comfortable. Sure, we were selling a lot of 1990's Trek 730 Hybrids and GT Tequestas at the time, but we were servicing hundreds of bikes from the 1960's through the 1980's as well.


So how does 20+ years of change in the bike industry look to a 1990's bike shop employee who was frozen in a block of ice during that time?


1. Mountain Bikes. What the heck happened to mountain bikes? This is by far the biggest set of changes that were immediately apparent. Everything from wheel size to frame geometry is radically different. They don't even look like the same machines. Yet I still see hundreds of 1990's chromoly mountain bikes in daily use on local streets due to their practicality as daily commuters, and rarely see anyone riding a "29'er" unless they are truly riding off road. It seems like they have lost the mass appeal of the older MTB's, except in the kid's market.


2. Road Bikes. Less change is apparent here. "Brifters" are now ubiquitous throughout most price points, while they were only on higher-end groupsets back in the early 90's. Frame geometries are now "compact" with sloping top tubes and more seat post exposed, but effective top tube lengths and wheel-bases are not that different. Bottom brackets are higher off the ground to avoid pedal strikes. I'm still trying to figure out how other changes have affected ride, comparing my vintage rides to my friends' modern bikes.


3. Frame materials. Steel is gone for the most point on large production bikes, and has been banished to small manufacturers and custom builds. Aluminum is now the least expensive option, and tube sections aren't necessarily round. Tubes can be formed and shaped in to sweeping curves or aerodynamic forms. Carbon options abound and allow for even more radical shapes and aerodynamic forms. I actually have a friend who is an active cyclist and says he has never owned "one of those skinny tube bikes".


4. New Bike Genres. Gravel bikes. Cyclocross bikes. Adventure bikes. It seems like there are at least a dozen micro-genre's for various drop-bar bikes. It also seems like the "gravel bike" is perhaps the best mix of options for most people, though I'm pretty sure we all came up with it on our own 25 years ago by changing tires on road or touring frames with higher tire clearances.


5. Price. Holy $@$%^#@, bikes have gotten expensive. Back in the 1990's we still sold a crap load of $350 bikes, a smaller number of $500+ bikes, a couple dozen $1,000+ bikes, and had maybe one or two $2,000+ bikes in the shop a year as showpieces that never sold and ultimately ended up in the hands of the shop owner (which he then sold used the following year for a significant price break). Now we are seeing $5,000 or even $10,000+ bikes on my local streets here in the Chicago burbs. Even with inflation-adjusted dollars, it does seem like the prices of bikes have increased quite a bit, and that the higher end is more popular than it used to be.


What are the other monumental changes of the last 25 years? What did I miss? I hear that a certain celebrity American cyclist got in to some trouble with PED's... :twitchy:

Arse Technica just had an article on this. (It is very basic and not written for a bike audience.)

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018...-wheeled-tech/

For road bikes, the biggest changes I personally noticed between my latest (2014) purchase and my previous one (1987):

1. Frame materials (although I stuck with steel).
2. Disc brakes.
3. Drive train (especially the transition from freewheel to feehub and much wider gear range).
4. Shifters (I went from downtube friction to Di2).

I got the distinct impression that several of the advances (disk brakes, stems, etc.) originated with mountain bikes.

Cool article. Thanks for posting. The Trek 1200 in that photo brings back some memories.

Other changes that confounded me:

Disk brakes
Hydraulics brake lines
Electronic shifting
Hollowtech II and other external bearing bottom brackets/cranksets
Through-axle
Steerers tapered or larger than 1-1/8"
"Dropper" seat posts
Multiple-click "trim" on a front shifting brifter
Straight-pull spokes

Aerodynamics of triathlon/TT bikes, including integration of componentry with the frame.

Modern re-issues of collectible classics, especially Schwinn Sting-Rays and coaster brake heavyweights/middleweights.

Rip van Winkle, not Rumpelstiltskin.

Rip Van Winkle? That dude slept.

In 2011, I decided that I deserved a new bike, after riding the same bike for 27 years. I had to ask the salesperson how to work the new-fangled shifters.

No, I haven't seen or heard of that. Who makes the frame?

Change it to "TrumpleThinSkin" and they will move it to P&R.

That's pretty interesting, that your list included Adventure bikes. Cannondale called my Silk Path an adventure bike, in their 2000 catalog, but I don't recall seeing that term in writing, anywhere else (besides the decal). 🤔😉 This one's like a beefed up touring bike, with a built-in Headshok. 😎

The newer genres seem pretty fluid. "Adventure Bike" seems like it could really describe just about anything.

Another genre bender that seems to have come and gone is the "fitness bike", which I think was just a hybrid built for a little more speed with street tires and lighter wheels. Is anyone selling these any more?

I had never heard of cyclocross until a few years ago when a friend posted Facebook photos of a bunch of racers running up a grassy hill with bikes slung over their shoulders. I completely missed that one. Apparently it's been around for many decades in some form or another, but the popularity increased after the mid-1990's, thus developing during my hibernation. For us 25 years ago a "cross bike" was a "hybrid bike". Cyclocross bikes are pretty well-developed and now governed by UCI, so clearly it's a thing.

It took some serious examination to tell the difference between a cyclocross bike and a gravel bike, but I think GCN has set me straight on that one. Maybe.

We did a lot of experimentation with different tires and builds, however. MTB's with slicks and touring bikes with knobby tires were around. Someone brought around an early version of a "Fat Bike". I appreciate the ingenuity, and sometimes something catches on.

I read these words... I do not know what they mean. For all I know you're making up pentoozium processo words to confound me.

A little company called Trek.

https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/b...-bikes/c/B420/

Also, Specialized: https://www.specialized.com/us/en/sh...rban/c/fitness

My wife has one of these. Basically a road bike with flat bars for people who don't like drops. I think it lowers the price, too, because they can use less expensive mountain bike parts.

Click the red ! symbol, and ask the moderators to change the title.

It's down here
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It doesn't really matter. It is a good thread, by any name.

i too had an extended period of time hibernating from trends in the cycling industry.

In addition to what the other posters have mentioned, there are some things that just stood out to me.

The first was threadless headsets. This was a complete, full stop, 'OK, WTF' moment, where i had to resort to youtube clips to get up to speed.

The second was how incredibly crappy the big box store low end bikes have gotten. It is really really difficult to keep the brakes and gears on those things in tune, and the hub and bottom bracket bearings seem designed to catch any and all road grit and water for maximum race and cone damage.

The most unexpected thing was how much cheaper a full groupset is when you order it from one of the large British-based bike part websites

Welcome to the crowd.

As many have noted, C&V might as well refer to the people who post here rather than the bikes. Your path is similar to mine and many others. Lots of us worked in an LBS "BITD", then life got in the way. For me it was a real career (nowadays > 40 hrs/week), then marriage (need to spend time with her), finally kids (yeah, now there's 10 lbs of crap to stuff in a 5 lb sack), so the bikes collected dust. At some point the kids needed to learn how to ride a bike, so off we went on 1-2 mile rides together. At some point they grow up to the point where they're not asking you for help every 15 minutes or needing supervision, and a sliver of spare time became available, and we realized that we really like to ride and work on our bikes. I don't work on brifters and all this new stuff mainly because my knowledge is frozen in the late 80's. Eroica rules limit us to pre-1987 technology, many of us wonder why we need anything past that!

+1 on the tractor look. In another recent thread, another member referred to the side-on view of a modern MTB as looking like "a dog pooping". Now I can't get either image out of my mind.....

My time in the mid-90's did overlap the threadless headset introduction on higher end models (the famous "Ahead-Set" and it's immitators), so I did at least have some experience with those. But now the head tubes have gotten HUGE on some frames, and there is these tapered steerers. So far I haven't worked on any of these.

And there are also the low profile headsets that disappear in to the frame.

YouTube was my friend for the new HollowTech II bottom brackets. Thank you RJ the Bike Guy.

So headsets disappear in to the frame, but bottom brackets are pulled out? Okay.

Oh, I can't un-see it now.

Compare or avg. out the CPI 1990 to 2018 / avg. 2.5% yr. Then discuss the cost of typical premium frame material of carbon fiber 1990 to 2018.

Yes of course the $10k MSRP bikes exist but if one clears the head of ether, the dollar today for a dang light, super shifting, awesome braking bike is amazing.

You can purchase name brand, NEW but discounted 2018 carbon fiber mtb or road $1200 / 1,500 as example. Quite frankly, its even easier to purchase vs. 1990. Online marketplace has made the advantage to buyer, though less profitable to sellers.

Leads to today's LBS fading away.