Fashion certainly played a major part - if function was the main consideration everybody would have been using Simplex or Suntour rear derailleurs, Suntour front mechs, Stronglight chainsets, bottom brackets and headsets, Shimano Dura-Ace brakes - with perhaps Campag pedals, and hubs in the 70s.
Hilary Stone, Bristol, England
> From: Chuck Schmidt <chuckschmidt@earthlink.net>
> Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 23:49:49 -0700
> To: Classic Rendezvous Bike List <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
> Subject: Re: [CR]Boutique buying in the classic era -- Not quite the same!
>
>
> On Apr 12, 2006, at 4:33 PM, Bianca Pratorius wrote:
>
>> Someone commented that there were bicycle boutiques and chain store
>> shops back in the 70's. I can not remember seeing any chain stores
>> for bicycles in New York or in San Francisco or in San Diego. Two
>> stores do not a chain make. Furthermore the boutique buying I am
>> describing has nothing to do with poseurs in the 70's spending way
>> too much for Nouvo Record and Paramount and the like. Of course
>> people have always desired to possess something which seems
>> incredibly well crafted, and of course people back in the day
>> bought racing bikes when they probably would have been better
>> suited to an English three speed. The point here is that the
>> present day boutiques have been perfectly modeled after women's
>> high end clothing or shoe boutiques. Women's clothing stores are an
>> exercise in absolute fashion and total appeal to the "look". The
>> modern stores I am seeing involve total commitment to selling
>> cycling equipment as a fashion statement. There were always stores
>> that placed Campy stuff in showcases for us to drool over. The
>> difference was that the staff was motivated more by function and
>> less by fashion than the current crop of merchandizers. Ask any of
>> our shop owners like Dale if he ever hired a salesman based on his
>> European hair cut or his French accent. Ask them if they
>> deliberately purchased carpeting to create a venue wherein ultra
>> high prices would seem less out of place. Ask them if there were
>> backers for their grand opening so that one could drop a half mill
>> for advertising, stock and interior construction. I remember the
>> old shops as having been started on a wing and a prayer of a single
>> dreamer, without the obvious guiding hands of investors hovering
>> over the operation. I am telling you that Bike Tech in Miami is a
>> dead ringer for the old clothing boutique "Charavari" in New York,
>> if anyone recalls it.
>>
>> Garth Libre in Miami Fl.
>
>
> I guess it all depends on your definition of chainstore and
> boutique... you weren't ever in L.A. back then? For the ultimate
> late 70s L.A. bike boutique there was Taylor Platner's Ernie's Bike
> Shop in Brentwood. They had De Rosa, Merckx, Pinarello and literally
> not a single clincher or inner tube in the store, only tubulars
> (sewups) for sale. They were happy to be called elitist.
>
> And of course even back then Bikecology had three stores on the
> Trendy Westside that carried Masi, Colnago, Mercian, Bob Jackson, Ron
> Cooper, Allegro in the late 70s early 80s.
>
> Then in the mid 80s there was the famous "Bike Shop Wars" on Warner
> Blvd. in Huntington Beach, California where Bikecology (5 stores),
> Buds (five stores, one called BikeTech), and 2 Wheel Transit (three
> stores) went toe to toe. Alan Goldsmith, Bill McCready, Paul Moore
> had an old fashion throw down and it made for some interesting case
> studies in the trade publications. These were the life-style stores
> you're talking about... LA SoCal style! There were three flagship
> style bike shops in a two block area (Performance was around the
> corner in the 90s).
>
> Example of the SuperSale from the Bike Shop Wars:
> http://www.friedman.co.nz/
>
> Conrad's in NYC next to the United Nations was another 70s boutique
> style store; they had nothing but the best of the best (is Sara still
> around?)!
>
> The more things change the more they stay the same...
>
> Chuck Schmidt
> South Pasadena, Southern California
>
> .