[CR] 1950's & 1980's Bike Books

(Example: Framebuilders:Alberto Masi)

From: "accobra" <accobra@peoplepc.com>
To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Subject: [CR] 1950's & 1980's Bike Books
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 16:02:45 -0500


I'm becoming more intrigued about older road bikes from the 1950's (this is a dangerous sign for someone who already has too many 1970's lightweights). I hate to admit it, but I didn't realize until recently that multi-gear freewheels & derailleurs existed as early as the 1950's. Maybe I just didn't think about it that much.

I'd like to learn more about them. Can anyone suggest a good reference book on lightweights built in the 1950's? In my other hobbies, (such as classic cars, antiques, etc) there are all sorts of well-done books with plenty of current-day color pictures and/or vintage pictures of the subject matter at hand. But when it comes to bicycles there appears to be a big void. I've bought a few Schwinn books at my local book store but it drops off quickly after that, except for a couple historical books on the Tour de France with fuzzy glimpses of the bikes.

Any suggestions?

On the same note, and maybe everyone on here is already aware of it, but there's a hardcover book called "The High-Tech Bicycle" from 1982 by Edward Stevenson that has a lot of high quality pictures of lightweights & related components from the late 70's-early 80's era (191 pages). The dustcover has a big picture of a Campy Super Record crankset on it. I believe it's long out of print but it pops up on eBay occasionally for about $50. It's well worth the price in my opinion.

Mark Winkelman
Dallas, Texas