I want to corroborate what Billy is saying here. I grew up in Chicago at that time, and was in high school on the North Side, in Rogers Park/Edgewater. i haunted Turin, Roberts Cycles (importer of Holdworth, and seller of Fiorelli, Peugeot, Gitane, Raleigh, and others), and several other good shops. Same experience, no Bobets, but a number of Merciers. My roommate had a Mercier comparable to the PX-10E, truly a great bike. To the list of great bikes that passed through Turin, I add Alex Singer, Cicli Rossignoli, and Masi. On the lower (and sometimes higher) end, Falcon, and sometimes Dawes. Wastyn's did not seem in teh mainstream, but I think I really had a lakefront focus. Sauganash Cycles is the first place I ever saw a Paramount, and couldn't figure out why all the parts had all those foreign words printed on them.
Ken Freeman Ann Arbor, MI USA
On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 12:44 PM, <billydavid13@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
> Hi Jerry, all. I was living in Chicago at the beginning of the late '60s
> bike boom and familiar w/ Sloane's book soon after it came out. I don't know
> that i've ever seen a Bobet branded bike in person. Merciers, on the other
> hand were ubiquitous. I seem to recall that Bobet's were available from one
> or more of the early mail order houses and may have had some AYH
> association. Sloane lived in one of the northern suburbs of Chicago and i
> was pretty familiar w/ the regional pro shops, and never saw a Bobet in any
> of 'em. The Turin Bicycle Co-op [then based in Chicago, currently in the
> adjacent suburb of Evanston] carried a huge variety of French and Italian
> brands. That's where i saw my first Pogliaghis, Colnagos, Jacksons,
> Eisentrauts, and many more exotics but no Bobets. They certainly raised the
> bar for other area shops. Wastyn's was still around then [and still is] but
> seemed a bit out of the mainstream of the resurgence, though that might just
> be my own impression. I loved, and still love the Mercier paint and
> graphics, but there wasn't much else to distinguish them fom other French
> bikes. The top of the line was nearly identical to a PX10, except for,
> maybe, an Ideale saddle, and a chrome fork crown - quite sexy! But the
> Peugeot seemed more purposeful. Today I see tons of UO-8s but very few of
> the similarly priced Mercier 100s. Billy Ketchum; Chicago, IL; USA.