RE: [CR]Start Your Own Small-town Bicycle Shop, ca. 1974

(Example: Framebuilders:Tubing)

From: <"kohl57@starpower.net">
To: aldoross4@siscom.net, classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 11:27:21 -0400
Subject: RE: [CR]Start Your Own Small-town Bicycle Shop, ca. 1974


That's good fun, Aldo. All you needed was $5000.

And the bikes. And good luck with that back then. I suspect as a new dealer you'd be lucky to get Polish or Czech made "10-speeds" with about a

10-month waiting period. I loved this era when all of a sudden you'd see

dozens of brand new bikes with names you never heard of in your life. I remember Flandria just popped out of nowhere around here in the early 1970 s as some local shop scored a container load of 'em. Meanwhile the brands people knew and wanted.. Raleigh, Peugeot, Gitane, Schwinn... we ll they were thin on the ground during the height of the "boom" and a lot of the Raleighs were made in Holland, Ireland or Canada. I had to buy my Peugeo t UE-8 as a floor sample as it was. As long as it was a "10-speed" it all flew out of the door. I saw a pile of these "racers" in their rusted bei ge and yellow piled in a skip outside a condominium here and knew the only thing I'd get investigating any further was a case of tetanus.

Peter Kohler Washington DC USA

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