The bike boom of the early 70's

Tom Nakashima said:

When Carl sent me the link to the bike boom crash of '74, I was fascinated
reading the data. For one I was living in the era and had it blow right by
me. ...

I bought a $100 Murray that helped me strain my knee because the drive
train didn't function very well. After that, I became a runner and then
later a walker for the next 30 years. Glad I rediscovered smooth
running skinny tired bikes several years ago. I have enjoyed it much
more than I ever enjoyed running.

Tom Nakashima said:

When Carl sent me the link to the bike boom crash of '74, I was fascinated
reading the data. For one I was living in the era and had it blow right by
me. And second I was living in the Santa Clara Valley which had a 48-49%
increase, geographically the highest in bicycles sales. In the article, the
bike
boom might have been blamed on climate, but I had another theory:
The Draft of the Vietnam War.

What you say here makes a lot of sense. I was also in that
"demographic"; graduated from high school in '69 but damn sure went to
college. I probably would have done so anyway (I haven't left college
yet....), but lots of others were encouraged by the draft deferment.
And everyone in college had a bike.

It was also the time when the bulk of the baby boomers were 16-21,
which, then, was prime bike-riding age.

The article seems to just ignore both of those effects, the war/draft
incentive to stay in school and the large numbers of late-adolescent
boomers.

It also misses the boat, in my opinion, regarding the distinction
between lightweight/other bikes. The increase in sales of lightweight
bikes in the 70s was not due to the gas "crisis" but rather to the entry
of higher-quality cheap lightweight bikes from Japan out-competing the
venerable, massive, Schwinn Varsity. Prior to that time, the only
"lightweight" bikes available were more expensive, exotic European
racing bikes with such things as tubular tires.

Much of the shortsightedness of the article, though, is clearly due to a
lack of perspective. It was written in, what, 1977? It's harder to see
the effect of either the war, or the baby boomers, or even the Japanese,
while all that is still going on (OK, we were out of Vietnam).

Quoted message said:

Carls charts that he posted:

The Chart of the bicycle boom and crash
http://www.truewheelers.org/research/studies/aaa/images/fig01sm.gif

The Article
http://www.truewheelers.org/research/studies/aaa/02users.htm

--

David L. Johnson

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on
no account be allowed to do the job.
-- Douglas Adams

"David L. Johnson" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

It also misses the boat, in my opinion, regarding the distinction between
lightweight/other bikes. The increase in sales of lightweight bikes in
the 70s was not due to the gas "crisis" but rather to the entry of
higher-quality cheap lightweight bikes from Japan out-competing the David
L. Johnson

As I recall back in the early through the mid 70's one of the bikes
of choice besides the Nishiki, was the Peugeot U08. For
just a tad more money than the Schwinn Varsity, one could purchase
the lighter French Bike. I also recall Raleigh's to be a big hit back then.

Schwinn had the Paramount, but for that money, one could buy an
Italian Bianchi.
-tom

On Aug 22, 12:03 pm, "David L. Johnson" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

The article seems to just ignore both of those effects, the war/draft
incentive to stay in school and the large numbers of late-adolescent
boomers.

I think the baby boomers were probably a prime factor, along with the
hippie movement which made nonconformism cool, allowing people to go
out and buy bicycles without the stigma that a bike might have had to
a young adult in the early sixties. As for the draft theory, the first
thing someone would need to show is flat or dropping enrollment at the
time, but that might have been there anyway as the last of the boomers
entered college. The bike boom bust and dropping enrollment could both
be functions of the same factor. Besides, if I'm not mistaken, the
draft lottery, begun in '69, ended student deferments, so the draft
theory is out of sync with history.

Quoted message said:

It also misses the boat, in my opinion, regarding the distinction
between lightweight/other bikes. The increase in sales of lightweight
bikes in the 70s was not due to the gas "crisis" but rather to the entry
of higher-quality cheap lightweight bikes from Japan out-competing the
venerable, massive, Schwinn Varsity. Prior to that time, the only
"lightweight" bikes available were more expensive, exotic European
racing bikes with such things as tubular tires.

In the early 70s there were plenty of semi-affordable English and
French lightweight bikes with 27" tires, cottered cranks and steel
rims, weighing in at just under 30lbs. From everything I saw the
Japanese bikes did not really start to make a dent in the market until
after the boom began to decline. Surprisingly, there is essentially an
inverse correlation between the boom and oil prices. The boom peaked
in '73; the Yom Kippur War was the catalyst for the OPEC embargo in
late '73 that began the big price increases. It's not at all clear
that bike usage dropped off, though, just bike sales, so it may be
arguable about whether the boom really ended when sales slowed.
l

Any increase in college campus enrollment in the USA was likely more
due to the 1945-1960 baby boomers (births peaked in ~1950, college
years for those kids would be 1968-1972, mostly) than due to the
vietnam war.

Every time the boomers age 5 years, the country changes.

The economy struggled to find jobs for these kids from 1975-1980.
guess what? people born in the 30's all got to be managers !!

The housing market went hyperbolic from 1975-1985.

In the past 10 years, vacation home prices have gone ballistic.

Everyone is expecting geriatric products and services industries to go
hyperbolic over the next 10-20 years.

In the mid 1960's an apartment in New York's Greenwich Village could
be rented using the part-time salary of a bookstore employee. Once
the boomers graduated, that kind of "easy living" was gone forever ...

The thing about the silent generation - the ones who fought WWII - is
that the average family had 4 kids. This instantly put the parents
atop a financial pyramid scheme, and for the ones that survived WWII,
it has been easy sailing all of their lives, if they just reached for
the opportunity ... all they had to do was to buy a house and save
some money in the stock market; they enjoyed financial success like no
other generation in history ...

- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA

I also remember the environmental craze kicked in the early 70's as Earth
Day was celebrated to help boost the bicycle spike. People were becoming
more health conscious. Jogging and workout suits were in fashion. It's
possible "Disco" could have caused the bike boom crash.
The popularity of disco started in 1975. Difficult to ride in those platform
shoes and polyester bellbottoms.
-tom

Tom Nakashima said:

When Carl sent me the link to the bike boom crash of '74, I was fascinated
reading the data. For one I was living in the era and had it blow right by
me. And second I was living in the Santa Clara Valley which had a 48-49%
increase, geographically the highest in bicycles sales. In the article, the
bike
boom might have been blamed on climate, but I had another theory:
The Draft of the Vietnam War.
I graduated high school in 1972 during the heart of the bike boom. In
1970-1974 as I recall, all high school males had to enter the lottery draft
of the Vietnam War. One of the ways to get out of the draft was to extend
your education by attending college, which many hs students did. I was
attending San Jose State Univ. at the time in the Santa Clara Valley.
So where does the bike boom fit in?
The surge of college students to get out of the war, and cheap
transportation
to get around campus. San Jose State was 7-long blocks long, and was just
as wide. I can recall there were bicycles everywhere, seemed like everyone
rode a road bike back then. I remember rolls and rolls of bicycles, stock
piled horizontally in bike racks all over the campus. Talk about parking,
can you imagine not being able to find a bicycle parking space?
When the Vietnam War was nearing the end 1974-1975, many college students
returned to the normal life and result, the crash of the bicycle boom.
I could be wrong about the theory, but it was just a thought.
comments?

Go Spartans! I prefer to call SJSU "the Harvard of San Jose." I was
there at basically the same time (a little later) and don't remember
the crash of the bike boom either because I, too, was just too stoned
to notice.

The deal with the Santa Clara Valley at or near that time is that it
was abuzz with bicycle activity -- crash or not. We had Phil Wood,
Mike Sinyard (who would start Specialized), Gary Klein, Jim Blackburn
(in your class, I think), Avocet (PAB), Wheelsmith (later making pre-
fab wheels), Tom Ritchey, Keith Bontrager (in the 80s), later Kestrel
in Santa Cruz, Jim Gentes (Giro), and lots of other frame builders --
my buddy Dale Saso, Jeff Lyons, Eisentraut in Oakland and a bunch of
others whose names escape me. Tons of good shops. Klein was sponsoring
SJBC a little later in '76-77 I think. I remember thinking how freaky
those bikes looked. I think we all just ignored the crash. -- Jay
Beattie.

Tom Nakashima said:

"David L. Johnson" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

It also misses the boat, in my opinion, regarding the distinction between
lightweight/other bikes. The increase in sales of lightweight bikes in
the 70s was not due to the gas "crisis" but rather to the entry of
higher-quality cheap lightweight bikes from Japan out-competing the David
L. Johnson

As I recall back in the early through the mid 70's one of the bikes
of choice besides the Nishiki, was the Peugeot U08. For
just a tad more money than the Schwinn Varsity, one could purchase
the lighter French Bike. I also recall Raleigh's to be a big hit back then.

Japanese BSO's (bicycle shaped objects) were a second wave.

Tom Nakashima said:

"David L. Johnson" <[email hidden]> wrote in messagenews:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

It also misses the boat, in my opinion, regarding the distinction between
lightweight/other bikes. The increase in sales of lightweight bikes in
the 70s was not due to the gas "crisis" but rather to the entry of
higher-quality cheap lightweight bikes from Japan out-competing the David
L. Johnson

As I recall back in the early through the mid 70's one of the bikes
of choice besides the Nishiki, was the Peugeot U08. For
just a tad more money than the Schwinn Varsity, one could purchase
the lighter French Bike. I also recall Raleigh's to be a big hit back then.

Schwinn had the Paramount, but for that money, one could buy an
Italian Bianchi.

IM (retrospective)O, the Paramounts were underappreciated because they
were a domestic product and they bore the Schwinn name.

"Jay Beattie" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Go Spartans! I prefer to call SJSU "the Harvard of San Jose." I was
there at basically the same time (a little later) and don't remember
the crash of the bike boom either because I, too, was just too stoned
to notice.

Remember those long lines at the original Togo's across from campus? It's
amazing nobody wore bicycle helmets back then, and there were fewer
accidents...who didn't smoke back then?

Quoted message said:

The deal with the Santa Clara Valley at or near that time is that it
was abuzz with bicycle activity -- crash or not. We had Phil Wood,
Mike Sinyard (who would start Specialized), Gary Klein, Jim Blackburn
(in your class, I think), Avocet (PAB), Wheelsmith (later making pre-
fab wheels), Tom Ritchey, Keith Bontrager (in the 80s), later Kestrel
in Santa Cruz, Jim Gentes (Giro), and lots of other frame builders --
my buddy Dale Saso, Jeff Lyons, Eisentraut in Oakland and a bunch of
others whose names escape me. Tons of good shops. Klein was sponsoring
SJBC a little later in '76-77 I think. I remember thinking how freaky
those bikes looked. I think we all just ignored the crash. -- Jay
Beattie.

You forgot one big name: Spence Wolf of the original Cupertino Bike
Shop...RIP.
I vaguely remember those people back then, but know them well now.
I have an Eisentraut from the 70's. I've met Tom Ritchey, Gary Klein and I
once raced to the top of Kennedy...he was cursing at me the whole time. I
did some photography for Ric at Wheelsmith and still ride a frame he gave me
in return for my services. Dale Saso had done some work on the frame Ric
gave me. Do you remember DesMones Bike Shop near SJSU on 2nd St.? That's
where I purchased my Italvega Record. Able the owner thought I was going to
turn the Lay-Away into a 15 year mortgage. Terry Shaw who is now in Santa
Clara had a shop on Williams St. near SJSU. In order to get there you had to
ride through a street full of hookers.
-tom

"Ozark Bicycle" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Tom Nakashima said:

"David L. Johnson" <[email hidden]> wrote in
messagenews:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

It also misses the boat, in my opinion, regarding the distinction
between
lightweight/other bikes. The increase in sales of lightweight bikes in
the 70s was not due to the gas "crisis" but rather to the entry of
higher-quality cheap lightweight bikes from Japan out-competing the
David
L. Johnson

As I recall back in the early through the mid 70's one of the bikes
of choice besides the Nishiki, was the Peugeot U08. For
just a tad more money than the Schwinn Varsity, one could purchase
the lighter French Bike. I also recall Raleigh's to be a big hit back
then.

Schwinn had the Paramount, but for that money, one could buy an
Italian Bianchi.

IM (retrospective)O, the Paramounts were underappreciated because they
were a domestic product and they bore the Schwinn name.

Unless you knew your bikes. Paramounts had a plain paint job, looked like
the lower end Schwinn 10 speed bikes, but they did have the Campagnolo
components. It wasn't until Eric Heiden the gold medalist ice skater who
made the Paramounts popular.
Most cyclist in our area preferred the Bob Jacksons, Raleigh Professionals,
Peugeot PX10's, Ron Coopers, and Albert Eisentraut's.
-tom

"Tom Nakashima" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

When Carl sent me the link to the bike boom crash of '74, I was

fascinated

Quoted message said:

reading the data. For one I was living in the era and had it blow right

by

Quoted message said:

me. And second I was living in the Santa Clara Valley which had a

48-49%

Quoted message said:

increase, geographically the highest in bicycles sales. In the article,

the

Quoted message said:

bike
boom might have been blamed on climate, but I had another theory:
The Draft of the Vietnam War.
I graduated high school in 1972 during the heart of the bike boom. In
1970-1974 as I recall, all high school males had to enter the lottery

draft

Quoted message said:

of the Vietnam War. One of the ways to get out of the draft was to

extend

Quoted message said:

your education by attending college, which many hs students did. I was
attending San Jose State Univ. at the time in the Santa Clara Valley.
So where does the bike boom fit in?
The surge of college students to get out of the war, and cheap
transportation
to get around campus. San Jose State was 7-long blocks long, and was

just

Quoted message said:

as wide. I can recall there were bicycles everywhere, seemed like

everyone

Quoted message said:

rode a road bike back then. I remember rolls and rolls of bicycles,

stock

Quoted message said:

piled horizontally in bike racks all over the campus. Talk about

parking,

Quoted message said:

can you imagine not being able to find a bicycle parking space?
When the Vietnam War was nearing the end 1974-1975, many college

students

Quoted message said:

returned to the normal life and result, the crash of the bicycle boom.
I could be wrong about the theory, but it was just a thought.
comments?
-tom

Carls charts that he posted:

The Chart of the bicycle boom and crash
http://www.truewheelers.org/research/studies/aaa/images/fig01sm.gif

The Article
http://www.truewheelers.org/research/studies/aaa/02users.htm

Interesting theory but the draft ended in 1973. I enlisted in 1961 and
served for 5 years. A lot of the guys that I grew up with who would have
never gone to school went off to college to avoid the draft (early 60s pre
Vietnam era). When I came home in 1966 most of them were still in school.

One of my friends was able to stretch out his education until 1969. When
he graduated he was married with 2 kids but still got drafted and ended up
spending a year in Vietnam as an enlisted grunt.

I lived near SJSU for a while in 1969. I don't recall seeing many bikes in
the area during that time period so the boom must have hit there later.

I moved to NM and started back to school in the early 1970s. I sold my car
and bought a Gitane Gran Sport 10 speed so that I wouldn't be tempted to
take off to the mountains all the time.

There were 4 shops near the university: one sold Peugeots and Raleighs,
another Schwinns and Motobecanes, the 3rd Gitanes and Japanese makes. The
shop where I worked and later managed sold mainly mid range and better
quality European bikes from a couple of dozen makers.

During 1972 and 1973 the LBS couldn't assemble bikes fast enough to meet
the demand. A trailer load of bikes would come in and customers were
buying them as they were being unloaded. It was a feeding frenzy.

Bike parking was at a premium on campus. The Bike Boom crash never hit
Albuquerque that hard. 10-11 months of good weather plus the 1973-74 Arab
Oil Embargo kept a lot of people cycling.

Chas.

Tom Nakashima said:

"Jay Beattie" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Go Spartans! I prefer to call SJSU "the Harvard of San Jose." I was
there at basically the same time (a little later) and don't remember
the crash of the bike boom either because I, too, was just too stoned
to notice.

Remember those long lines at the original Togo's across from campus? It's
amazing nobody wore bicycle helmets back then, and there were fewer
accidents...who didn't smoke back then?

Quoted message said:

The deal with the Santa Clara Valley at or near that time is that it
was abuzz with bicycle activity -- crash or not. We had Phil Wood,
Mike Sinyard (who would start Specialized), Gary Klein, Jim Blackburn
(in your class, I think), Avocet (PAB), Wheelsmith (later making pre-
fab wheels), Tom Ritchey, Keith Bontrager (in the 80s), later Kestrel
in Santa Cruz, Jim Gentes (Giro), and lots of other frame builders --
my buddy Dale Saso, Jeff Lyons, Eisentraut in Oakland and a bunch of
others whose names escape me. Tons of good shops. Klein was sponsoring
SJBC a little later in '76-77 I think. I remember thinking how freaky
those bikes looked. I think we all just ignored the crash. -- Jay
Beattie.

You forgot one big name: Spence Wolf of the original Cupertino Bike
Shop...RIP.
I vaguely remember those people back then, but know them well now.
I have an Eisentraut from the 70's. I've met Tom Ritchey, Gary Klein and I
once raced to the top of Kennedy...he was cursing at me the whole time. I
did some photography for Ric at Wheelsmith and still ride a frame he gave me
in return for my services. Dale Saso had done some work on the frame Ric
gave me. Do you remember DesMones Bike Shop near SJSU on 2nd St.? That's
where I purchased my Italvega Record. Able the owner thought I was going to
turn the Lay-Away into a 15 year mortgage. Terry Shaw who is now in Santa
Clara had a shop on Williams St. near SJSU. In order to get there you had to
ride through a street full of hookers.
-tom

Dude, I lived at Togos! Spartan Market was across the street (where I
cashed my checks to buy the sandwiches). I bought my first ever NR
derailler at Desimones in '73 ($35). It was such a creepy, dimly lit
cavernous place. Even the new equipment looked old. I rode three
times a week with Terry (his shop ride out of the Williams St. shop --
it cut back to two nights when track season started). We did a killer
loop over country roads in the east foothills -- now closed down due
to the sprouting of gated communities. We called it the shop race
since it attracted some NorCal heavy hitters. I spent countless hours
at Dale's shop on Taylor Street. He was a good friend. I am getting
so mistey-eyed! I really should be doing my work. -- Jay Beattie.

P.S. (1) I raced then-emerging phenom Mike Engleman to the top of
Kennedy and beat him. I think we was looking at the flowers or
something. He might not have known we were racing. Anytime he wanted
to go fast, he dropped my like an anchor. (2) I student taught high
school in East SJ and saw one of my students hooking on 3rd and
Williams. No joke! Made class a little awkward.

Tom Nakashima said:

When Carl sent me the link to the bike boom crash of '74, I was fascinated
reading the data. For one I was living in the era and had it blow right by
me. And second I was living in the Santa Clara Valley which had a 48-49%
increase, geographically the highest in bicycles sales. In the article, the
bike
boom might have been blamed on climate, but I had another theory:
The Draft of the Vietnam War.
I graduated high school in 1972 during the heart of the bike boom. In
1970-1974 as I recall, all high school males had to enter the lottery draft
of the Vietnam War. One of the ways to get out of the draft was to extend
your education by attending college, which many hs students did. I was
attending San Jose State Univ. at the time in the Santa Clara Valley.
So where does the bike boom fit in?
The surge of college students to get out of the war, and cheap
transportation
to get around campus. San Jose State was 7-long blocks long, and was just
as wide. I can recall there were bicycles everywhere, seemed like everyone
rode a road bike back then. I remember rolls and rolls of bicycles, stock
piled horizontally in bike racks all over the campus. Talk about parking,
can you imagine not being able to find a bicycle parking space?
When the Vietnam War was nearing the end 1974-1975, many college students
returned to the normal life and result, the crash of the bicycle boom.
I could be wrong about the theory, but it was just a thought.
comments?
-tom

Carls charts that he posted:

The Chart of the bicycle boom and crash
http://www.truewheelers.org/research/studies/aaa/images/fig01sm.gif

The Article
http://www.truewheelers.org/research/studies/aaa/02users.htm

Dear Tom,

It's surprisingly hard to find data on U.S. college enrollment, year
by year, but what I've seen shows no drop, much less a crash.

Graduation is a rough proxy for enrollment. Here's a quick and dirty
graph of total U.S. undergraduate and graduate degrees awarded from
1969 to 2003, year by year:

http://i12.tinypic.com/4y4wymg.jpg

Data came from downloading the spreadsheet and totalling figures for
this table:

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d05/tables/dt05_253.asp

I looked, but couldn't find San Jose State University enrollment
figures. I suspect that they kept increasing.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

Quoted message said:

Tom Nakashima said:

When Carl sent me the link to the bike boom crash of '74, I was fascinated
reading the data. For one I was living in the era and had it blow right by
me. And second I was living in the Santa Clara Valley which had a 48-49%
increase, geographically the highest in bicycles sales. In the article, the
bike
boom might have been blamed on climate, but I had another theory:
The Draft of the Vietnam War.
I graduated high school in 1972 during the heart of the bike boom. In
1970-1974 as I recall, all high school males had to enter the lottery draft
of the Vietnam War. One of the ways to get out of the draft was to extend
your education by attending college, which many hs students did. I was
attending San Jose State Univ. at the time in the Santa Clara Valley.
So where does the bike boom fit in?
The surge of college students to get out of the war, and cheap
transportation
to get around campus. San Jose State was 7-long blocks long, and was just
as wide. I can recall there were bicycles everywhere, seemed like everyone
rode a road bike back then. I remember rolls and rolls of bicycles, stock
piled horizontally in bike racks all over the campus. Talk about parking,
can you imagine not being able to find a bicycle parking space?
When the Vietnam War was nearing the end 1974-1975, many college students
returned to the normal life and result, the crash of the bicycle boom.
I could be wrong about the theory, but it was just a thought.
comments?
-tom

Carls charts that he posted:

The Chart of the bicycle boom and crash
http://www.truewheelers.org/research/studies/aaa/images/fig01sm.gif

The Article
http://www.truewheelers.org/research/studies/aaa/02users.htm

Dear Tom,

It's surprisingly hard to find data on U.S. college enrollment, year
by year, but what I've seen shows no drop, much less a crash.

Graduation is a rough proxy for enrollment. Here's a quick and dirty
graph of total U.S. undergraduate and graduate degrees awarded from
1969 to 2003, year by year:

http://i12.tinypic.com/4y4wymg.jpg

Data came from downloading the spreadsheet and totalling figures for
this table:

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d05/tables/dt05_253.asp

I looked, but couldn't find San Jose State University enrollment
figures. I suspect that they kept increasing.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

Aha!

Here's a graph that does show a very slight drop in total U.S. college
enrollment from 1975-1976:

http://i18.tinypic.com/4yq8k1j.jpg

Here's the bike sales graph again, with the crash from 1974-1975:

http://www.truewheelers.org/research/studies/aaa/images/fig01sm.gif

The years don't quite seem to match. It looks as if bike sales dropped
50% a year _before_ college enrollment dropped less than 5%.

The raw numbers certainly don't match. College enrollment dropped less
than half a million students, while bike sales dropped about 7
million.

The enrollment is from figure 2 in this PDF:

http://www.ed.gov/PDFDocs/collegeweek.pdf

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

Perhaps it was mostly a case of market saturation.

After all once you have ten speed gathering dust in the garage why would
you buy another?

For these folks there was no incentive to buy another bike until
mountain bikes became fashionable.

The mountain bike now gathers dust next to the ten speed, not far from
the his and hers electric assist comfort bikes with the sulfated batteries.

Marcus

Quoted message said:

David L. Johnson said:

The article seems to just ignore both of those effects, the war/draft
incentive to stay in school and the large numbers of late-adolescent
boomers.

Quoted message said:

I think the baby boomers were probably a prime factor, along with the
hippie movement which made nonconformism cool, allowing people to go
out and buy bicycles without the stigma that a bike might have had to
a young adult in the early sixties. As for the draft theory, the first
thing someone would need to show is flat or dropping enrollment at the
time, but that might have been there anyway as the last of the boomers
entered college. The bike boom bust and dropping enrollment could both
be functions of the same factor. Besides, if I'm not mistaken, the
draft lottery, begun in '69, ended student deferments, so the draft
theory is out of sync with history.

Quoted message said:

David L. Johnson said:

It also misses the boat, in my opinion, regarding the distinction
between lightweight/other bikes. The increase in sales of lightweight
bikes in the 70s was not due to the gas "crisis" but rather to the entry
of higher-quality cheap lightweight bikes from Japan out-competing the
venerable, massive, Schwinn Varsity. Prior to that time, the only
"lightweight" bikes available were more expensive, exotic European
racing bikes with such things as tubular tires.

Quoted message said:

In the early 70s there were plenty of semi-affordable English and
French lightweight bikes with 27" tires, cottered cranks and steel
rims, weighing in at just under 30lbs. From everything I saw the
Japanese bikes did not really start to make a dent in the market until
after the boom began to decline. Surprisingly, there is essentially an
inverse correlation between the boom and oil prices. The boom peaked
in '73; the Yom Kippur War was the catalyst for the OPEC embargo in
late '73 that began the big price increases. It's not at all clear
that bike usage dropped off, though, just bike sales, so it may be
arguable about whether the boom really ended when sales slowed.

SocSecTrainWreck is right. Japanese bikes were of better quality, lower
priced and innovatve in some important ways but didn't sell in
significant numbers against European models until after the crash.
--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

Tom Nakashima said:

I also remember the environmental craze kicked in the early 70's as Earth
Day was celebrated to help boost the bicycle spike. People were becoming
more health conscious. Jogging and workout suits were in fashion. It's
possible "Disco" could have caused the bike boom crash.
The popularity of disco started in 1975. Difficult to ride in those platform
shoes and polyester bellbottoms.

No matter what evil you ascribe to disco, I'd believe it.
--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

Quoted message said:

Besides, if I'm not mistaken, the
draft lottery, begun in '69, ended student deferments, so the draft
theory is out of sync with history.

This is correct; once the lottery system was instituted, you could no longer
get out of service via college deferment as you could in the past. Instead
you had to either know somebody or enroll in the coast or national guard.
How times have changed; enrolling in the national guard is no longer a
ticket out of combat.

I think the bike boom was largely a result of three factors-

#1: The baby boomers coming of age. Lots and lots and lots of 12-21 year
olds in the market all of a sudden.

#2: The bike was seen as both mainstream transportation (for kids) and
counter-cultural at the same time.

#3: Bob Keeshan. "Schwinn bikes are Best!"

--Mike Jacoubowsky
Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReaction.com
Redwood City & Los Altos, CA USA