Totoro

I understand from a different discussion that there was a major bike boom in the 1970s that lasted a couple of years and then suddenly died off, leaving the market flooded with cheap bikes. Does anyone know the history of the 1970s bike boom, what started it off, and what brought it to an end.

Did the movie "Breaking Away" have anything to do with it, or was this movie just a reaction to the sudden interest in bikes?

lotek 

I can't really speak too much about the bike boom
although I have a hunch that the gas embargo had
something to do with it.

Breaking Away didn't have anything to do with the bike boom
(that was a few years earlier than the movie).

Marty

* jack *

My understanding is that the 'bike boom' started in the early seventies. I think bell-bottoms had something to do with it, but don't quote me on that... Some people think it had something to do with Hippies and the Schwinn Stingray.

Breaking Away was 1979.

Here, read this.

There were actually two 'booms' - one occured in the early 80's also.

Maybe Breaking Away ended the bike boom.
Either that, or too many Greg LeMond interviews.

suntreader

I spent the entire bike boom sitting on the couch, eating chips and watching TV. Any idea when it ended and, more importantly, WHY?

Point

My memories of the bike boom were in the early 70's, around '72 and '73 when oil prices soared. The market was flooded with all sorts of bikes, a lot of them lower end European types with high tensile frames, steel cranks, steel rims, etc. Schwinn started the LeTour about that time, and some of the Japanese imports were nicer than the European stuff.

That boom faded away later in the decade. "Breaking Away" came out in '79 or so, after the first bike boom.

USAZorro

It only lasted for about 4 years. By then, 'PONG' was released, and the ensuing generations of video game addicts began to supercede bicyclists.

USAZorro

Hey Jack. I realize there's not a no smoking rule in the forum, but I'd appreciate it if you'd not light up when you're on the same thread as me. I get asthmatic reactions.

lotek 

I think we can make an exception for woody. . .

Jack, I only did that once (stingray thing), in college
when my hair was long and uhm. . . ahh. . I don't recall
that particular episode. .

Marty

kf5nd

Remember, the bike boom of the early-mid 1970s involved the Baby Boomers, who were varying in ages from 10 - 30 at that time, prime cycling ages. This was a monster demographic that powered many trends, not only bikes. If cycling is doing better now, it may be due to their children... the Baby Boom Echo. But I don't know if it is doing better, I'm not in the business.

John E

From 1972 to 1974, I worked part-time at Bikecology, the company which eventually swallowed Supergo but adoped the latter's name. The first "gasoline crisis" came in 1973, and it did boost bike sales, which had already begun to climb two years earlier. The market was dominated by the three "seven letter" brands, Raleigh, Schwinn, and Peugeot, but Nishiki soon became a serious contender. When I bought my American Eagle Semi-Pro in March 1971, Nishiki was little-known, but by the time I was selling and servicing Nishikis in 1973, they were very common, at least in West Coast Cycle Supply's turf.

John E

The mechanical star of "Breaking Away" was a Masi Gran Criterium. It was kind of fun watching the protagonist drafting behind the Cinzano truck at 50mph in the 42T chainring! We should start a "Breaking Away" bloopers thread ...

Sigurdd50

I was 14 in 1971 when my dad and I bought our first really great bikes: two identical Dawes Galaxys at the Turin BIke Shop on N. Clark in Chicago. due to the boom, a sur-tax was added to all imported bikes (something like $12.50)... probably to slow down the flood of import bikes that were challenging Huffy and Schwinn. I saved money from a summer job and paid $142 and change for the Simplex rigged double-butted Reynolds 531 bike. That bike rocked!

A by-product of the boom was a bike-rip-off industry which claimed my beloved bike 18 months later. Since my dad is too old to ride, he gave me his Dawes, and I have taken care of it for the last 15 years.

I also owned an Azuki Gran Tour and Jeunet Franche Comte (Sp?) The Jeunet was sweet... light, fast... and when it got nicked from a back porch in Chi... I retired to the couch to get chubby for ten years... til the Dawes came along again.

Why the boom? Why not?

mswantak

Growing up, I was practically inseparable from my bicycles; however, the bike boom arrived at the same time as my driver's license. Dumped my faithful Varsity for a Honda CL70 and didn't get back to bicycles for 30 years.

T-Mar

As John E states, the bicycle boom had already started prior to the oil embargo. It provided more fuel for the boom, but did not create it.

My feeling is that kf5nd pretty much hit the nail on the head with his comments. The bicycle boom coincides with the bay boomers coming into their late teens young adulthood. They had much more more disposable income on their hands than previous generations and were also more fitness orientated.

While derailleur equipped bicycles had been previously avaialable, the bicycles available up to that ime were primarily children's models. The European, adult manufacturers seemed pretty much content with own market. In the late 1960s both Shimano and SunTour set their sights on the North American market. This created a huge increase in the availability of adult, derailleur equipped bicycles. This activity, opened the eyes of the European manufacturers and they too started to court the North American market.

I n my opinion the early 1970s bicycle boom was due to a properous, fitness oriented, bay boom generation coming into young adulthood at the same time as derailleur equipped adult bicycles were first becoming widely available.

The bicycle boom still hasn't ended. There was a huge peak in the early 1970s, but sales have never dipped back to the pre-1970s level and in fact have continully risen. A lot of it has to do with an adult population that is being increasingly more fitness oriented. There have been other peaks since the intial one. There was a big peak in the late 1980s/early 1990s due to the mountain bicycle and the success of several North Americans on the European pro circuit. Lance's succeess has probaly created another one.

Poguemahone

I bought my first real roadie in 1979, a Peugeot PFN10E. At that point, I believe the bike boom was largely over, but as a result of it, there were some nice mid-level bikes on the market. My choice came down to either the PF or a Trek 410/412 (oddly enough I just now bought one of those). Liked them both, but the Peugeot was had snappier handling, plus I was friends with the guys at the shop I bought it at (Blue Wheel in Charlottesville).

I'm just a bit young for the boom (baby or bike), I think. Born in 1961, which was the depth of the baby bust and considered by some to be the first year of GenX. But I really think the boom helped bring decent bikes to the American market. Unfortunately, I think the emphasis on performance type bikes has had a long and detrimental effect on the American market. Bikes like my beloved Vello Kombi Spesial aren't made for the American market, little practical beaters great for getting beer from the local store or tooling about the neighborhood. It's a shame. Bikes are seen as exersize machines and not platforms for basic transport. It's really too bad.

OldsCOOL

The bike boom here in northern Michigan was about '72-'76 or thereabouts. I remember how cool it was to have chrome dropouts, centerpulls and downtube shifters.....and the serious guys had toeclips.



Olds

altpensacola

The 70's bike boom was the 10 speed. Derailleurs.
Those of us that had bikes had to have new bikes.
With that bike we no longer rode around the block, we toured the city.
Gas wasn't an issue. And we were all riding long before Breaking Away.

Just like the "Mountain" bike phenomena in the 80's.

Invention of not just a cool product, but an extremly useful product.

Glacier John

Being born in 1949 I lived through various bike eras.

In the 50's one speed coaster bikes with big balloon tires were in. They were kind of the equilvelant of 50's Detroit with lots of chrome and fins. long colorfull tassels hanging from the end of your handle bar grips. We also fastened playing cards to our seat stays with clothes pins to hit the spokes and sound like little engines.


In the later 50's early 60's lighter weight three speed ruled. I had a Raleigh Sport with a littele leather saddle bag under the seat to hold some tools and a tire repair kit. it also has a generator with front and rear lights. It was a great bike.

Then sometime around 60 or 61 I saw my first 10 speed, it was a Schwinn Continental with center pul brakes. I remember the Continental had center pulls while the Varsity had the older style side pulls. Center pulls were considered by us 10 year olds the ultimate sign of quality. A little later in the 60s Shcwinn introdused the Sting Ray and suddenly popping wheelies was all bikes were meant to do. A lot guy were finding old obsolete balloon tire bikes, putting a 20" tire in front and switching to Sting Ray style handle bars for a poor man's Sting ray.

Then around 1964-65 bikes were no longer cool, maybe ok for little kids. I walked two miles each way to high school to avoid the embarassment of being seen riding a bike. We has bike racks at school without a single bicycle parked in them.

I started college in 68 and drove my car or walked until around 1971 when suddenly the 10 speed bicycle was cool again. I bought an old Continental and fixed it up before realizing there were way lighter bikes to be had. The Peugeot UO-8 was very popular, shops were sold out of them all over. I bought one in white which was a popular colore.

Most people were content to ride there Peugeot to work and school and that was that until the boom ended a few years later. But there were those of us (Bike Forum types) that graduated to 531 frames with Campy components and either got into racing or serious touring. For us the bike boom of the seventies never ended.

"Breaking Away was a great movie. I also liked "American Flyer" with Kevin Costner in the early eighties.

kf5nd

I found some slides I took in the very late 70s, 1979. I'm going to scan them and post them. Should be fun. Big white mushroomy Bell helmets!

suntreader

I used baseball cards... mostly Mickey Mantle and Hank Aaron rookie cards.

genec

I agree with others here... prior to the '70s single speed Schwinn bikes were pretty much the normal bike.

The intro of good ten speeds, and for me the gas shortage came together at just the right time. I remember riding past long lines at the gas stations and hoping that it would get worse... that perhaps only cycling would be permitted on one day a week.

My first non-Schwinn was a Nishiki International. Later, I became Campy crazed...

Prior to that however, I did ride a bike to school... so I was already into cycling as transportation. Thought Stingrays were the stupidest thing out there. Knew it was just a fad.

Blackberry

That's almost as painful to me as the recollection that my mother tossed out my collection of AUTOGRAPHED baseball cards I so carefully built during my younger years. I probably could retire now on that collection.

T-Mar

Sorry, but I have to disagree with you on this one. The expanded marketplace and the electronic visibility via the internet has allowed niche manufacturers to survive and even thrive, when they would gone belly-up in the 1970s.

We have all the bicycle types available in the 1970s and more. A whole new market in off-road bicycles has emerged, with specialty bicycles for various disciplines (cross-country, downhill, freeride, trials, etc). The road market has diversified from just roadsters, touring and competition bicycles with the addition of cyclocross, hybrids, city bikes, time trial/triathlon and recumbents.

And if you want a retro-style style bicycle, there's probably a manufacturer for them too. A 1960s style musclebike? No problem. How about a 1940s era balloon tire model. You can have that too. Or a middleweight with rod brakes. Or even a turn of the century high-wheeler!

As for the small wheel, utility bicycles, the LBS just sold a Dahon the other day. Many of the large companies still have one in their line-up. Giant's model is called the Halfway. Trek has models F100, F400 and F600. It's just that the market is so diversified that most LBS are financially challenged to stock complete line-ups. They only stock the guaranteed sellers. Back in 1974, a big company like Peugeot had 15 models. Thirty years later, Giant has over 50 and Trek has over 100! They are out there, if you look for them.

suntreader

I have to agree with T-Mar. We're living in a new golden age of bikes. I wouldn't call it a boom, but it is certainly a wonderful time to get into cycling. Although the good bikes aren't cheap, you sure can get a lotta bang for the buck in the medium price range. And it's pretty easy to get exactly the type of bike you want... within reason, of course.

alanbikehouston

There was a "Perfect Storm" of factors that happened in the "boom" period...

- Between 1970 and 1975, enrollments at American colleges and universities doubled from ten years before

- Reduction in import duties that enabled bikes from the UK, France, and Japan to be sold for below Schwinn prices...Schwinn had competition in even smaller cities and towns

- The "environmental" movement, with everyone age fifteen to thirty pretending to care about the environment for a couple of years...even the Republicans pretended to care...

- The "anti-war" movement, which gave rise to an "anti-establishment" movement...the "pigs" were wasting fossil fuel by driving expensive Cadillac's while the "people" rejected such materialism by buying very expensive imported bikes

- The "hula hoop" syndrome...just as in the late 1950's, when a kid without a hula-hoop felt "left out", any guy who was about age twenty living in a big city, or in a college town during the early '70's felt "out of the loop" if he did not have a road bike. And, many young women wanted to ride as well.



But, the "Bike Industry" did itself in. When the "boom" started, shops had waiting lists for good quality bikes, from established makers, such as Raleigh, Motobecane, and Schwinn. After a year or two of waiting lists, millions of sub-standard bikes began to flood the market from dozens of "new" and "unknown" makers. Bike shops lacked enough skilled mechanics to correctly assemble and service the bikes. Folks got frustrated with bikes with untrue wheels, shifters that did not shift, brakes that did not brake..Over a period of a few months, the "boom" was over, leaving shops "stuck" with about a million unsold road bikes.

Things always balance out in the end. By 1977 or 1978, most of the "junk" bikes had been sold off. Stores had good supplies of high quality, affordable bikes. The 20% or 30% of "bike boomers" who stuck with riding were able to "upgrade" to nicer bikes at good prices. From around 1978 to 1988, the quality "gap" between "Pro" level road bikes and "mid-price" road bikes was very small...fewer bikes were being sold, but the quality level was higher.

One thing about the 1971 to 1976 period: in larger cities and in college towns, guys rode their bikes seven days a week, morning, noon and night. Rode to class, to work, to a grocery store, to the movies. Wore whatever they had on, whether it was a sport coat and tie, or a bathing suit and sandals.

Today, in my neighborhood, I only see young guys riding on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Wearing only the "official" "Look Like Lance" uniform. Often, the bike is on top of a car. The owner is driving twenty or thirty miles to go on a one hour ride. In my town, riding has become a week-end "sport", not a 24/7 way of life. The "24/7 riders" are what I miss about the "Bike Boom" days.