Never thought too much of the bike boom although I lived at the time where mountain biking was born in Fairfax in Marin county and I would hear quiet few stories from my bicycle friends but did not buy my first mountain bike until 1990!
Road cycling for many in the U.S. was and is for health conscious crowd--very different than in Europe where it attracts the opposite crowd to tennis or golf, although it is also for transportation! In french the bicycle is called "the little queen" because that was for so long and for so many the only form of transportation and recreation that one could afford!
The bicycle craze came to exist because a lot of people discovered that there was an alternative to the inexpensive 3 speeds bikes that Sears and the like offered! It was of course the beginning of a very healthy american bicycle industry which is highly prized in the rest of the world! Although again cycling was big in the U.S. with various velodrome or track races one in particular in New York!
Six-day racing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Madison (cycling) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia