Trakhak

Sounds right. I worked at the first Cannondale bike dealership in Maryland, and I remember being amazed at how many we sold, given that comparably equipped steel bikes were usually around $100 cheaper. And the retail price of the Cannondales represented a slightly lower profit margin, too.

On top of that, for the first couple of years, Cannondales were shipped completely disassembled, with the frame and fork in one box and the rest of the components in another, so the labor cost of assembling Cannondales was much higher.

But Treks had been shipped completely disassembled, too, for their first several years of selling to bike stores, so we'd gotten used to it to some extent. That's simply what it took to sell innovative American-built bikes in the early to mid-1980s.