SpeedofLite 

Just one article takes up this first post.
"Big Ring Awards" (Bicycling's celebration of the Best and Worst in Cycling for 1993)

A couple of short bike reviews not listed in the ToC will be posted separately. I might add the "New Products Jackpot" (InterBike '93) in this thread later.
As usual, let me know if you'd like to see something else listed in the ToC.
Just reply to this post or send me a PM and I'll send you a pdf of your requested article or insert it in a separate post to this thread.

RCMoeur 

Thanks for posting this lil' Christmas present. A good example of the "Silver Age" of Bicycling Magazine writing/content.

Brought up a lot of memories. Sometimes it's easy to forget that good high-performance folding bikes aren't all that old (except for a few earlier ones). My Bike Friday isn't the fastest folder for taking on a bus, but it's great for fitting in a suitcase. Bright bicycle lights had improved to the point where battery lights were very viable, but the LED revolution a decade and change later made them so obsolete you couldn't give them away. Very few people suspected just how much yellow that arro, er, confident kid would accumulate - or how that whole mess would end. And Zap... another product that one company would pioneer, and Shimano would improve and corner the market on.

But the throwaway dig at cute animal-shaped underseat bags hit close to home. Just last week, I was working next to our tandem, and as I brushed against the Blackburn raccoon pack the black fake fur on its face disintegrated and the little beady eyes clacked to the floor. Can't stand to lose such an old friend in this manner...

Chuck M 

Interesting. Late 1993 and the cover and ads had no urls or hint of the online existence that was coming alive. The ads were even short of 800 numbers.

RCMoeur 

As I recall, in 1993 online activity by the general public was still almost all in the walled gardens such as AOL and Compuserve, with bolder souls venturing into Usenet. If memory serves, it was 1995-1996 when the WWW exploded onto the public consciousness. I started building and publishing websites about that time - a couple of which are still in use, although updated with the times.

Piff 

Gravel bikes shod with knobby +50mm tires, anyone? The number of people up-sold to gravel bikes with expensive shifting components and tubeless that would be better off with a mid-range hybrid...

mstateglfr 

...were you not around in '93?

Chuck M 

We never had to buy floppy disks in the 90s.

Chuck M 

Yes I was. And I had a modem and everything. It was great.

steelbikeguy

.. so whatever happened to that young, promising racer by the name of Lance Armstrong??

nice to see the illustrations by Jef Mallett too! Looks like he was still developing some of his style for drawing people, and hadn't arrived at the technique used in his Frazz comic.

Steve in Peoria

SpeedofLite 

Here's the 12-page article covering Interbike 1993 that overflows into the next post.

SpeedofLite 

joesch

Same can be applied to the Ebike trend lately and both will be helping the bike industry in the long term and not soo much for the car sales.

joesch

Interesting that Dean produced the above pictured "metal matrix" seat post and also Ti versions as the bike industry was going carbon fiber big time. Carbon made its way to bicycle frames in the 1980s, and quickly spread to almost every component and subcomponent – front forks, rims, handlebars, seat posts, and more.

Frkl

this is my favorite bit:




sure, until everyone realized how much money was there in fracturing the market.

Garthr

I love these and all the magazine scans SpeedofLite ! Thanks

TenGrainBread 

Have a pair of those White Industries cranks in the stash