Re: [CR]We are lucky only now ...

Don:

No correction in general to your theory that the bike pipeline is leaner than in the past. Years ago when land was cheap, everyone in the industry could afford a big bike shop or wholesale warehouse to keep parts bins stuffed with every imaginable spring and brake pad carrier and valve core for every bike they ever sold or worked on. It was a great help that the brand most sold was Schwinn and there were many schwinn distributors all over the country with even more back up inventory of US made bikes and parts. Now most businesses, including the bike industry, are more focused on inventory as a real estate issue, ie, keeping the flow of imported goods high so you are not sitting on all this stuff that collects dust, AKA turning and earning. Replacement small parts are dificult if not impossible to routinely find today, but since so many of the newer derailluers, brake levers, etc are riveted together (for quality assurance purposes- it takes an expensive machine to press a bushing into a Paul brake lever, or a record carbon rear derailluer), all these support parts are not as necessary. I think whole components from 20 years past will be just as easy or dificult to find as it is now. The qty of old parts floating around in the market have more to do with the size of the company -Shimano and Campy was and is huge, Galli was tiny comparitively.

Tom Martin Oakland CA where it is partly cloudy again.

PS: Swap meet at the Bent Spoke on University in Berkeley CA this saturday May 3rd.