francophile 

These came with a recent purchase that seems to be stretching on for eternity.

These remind me of mail-order music catalogs for indie music back in the 80s - the wealth of instructional information inside is staggering, pre-internet days. Lots of exploded diagrams, tons of technical info. Some pictures to share of the catalogs and some of the content. Hi-res photos here.

francophile 

ps @juvela note the Wares catalog I was talking about previously in that second-from-last photo.

gugie 

Sweet! Brings me back...

dedhed

Wares and Bike & Hike are no longer in existence. I did buy at least one of my kids bikes at Wares. The building in the photo on the cover is now a Walgreens.

francophile 

I must say, based on the Hetchins-esque lugwork shown in the advert probably would've triggered me to buy.

I think the most daunting thing to see in these is the price lists, though. $20 for full Record brakesets, cranksets etc.

juvela

Thanks very much for sharing these, memory lane.

Have some of them.

Surprised Portuesi is not present in this assortment.

btw - Campag Record brakesets and cranksets were never 20USD. When looking at the prices young folks need to remember what wages were at this time. For example, in me state of California minimum wage at this epoch was something like $1.35/hr. Typical wage for a bike shop clerk or mechanic was ~$2.00/hr.

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Your Scheeren stem - checked VB and there is still none listed. You might wish to consider entering it if you are a member. You could include the appropriate page from one of the RonKit tomes...

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JohnDThompson 

I remember that Cyclology catalog.

Spaghetti Legs 

Good stuff. That recent purchase of yours was a real score!

francophile 

Every dog gets lucky every now and again! Oh and @ciclimeacci this came on the back side of missing yet another deal I thought was a total winner, keep your head up brother! And worse, the seller just called me again saying he had a vintage Campagnolo-embroidered messenger bag he thinks I'll want...

But I also feel a bit cursed. Imagine that feeling you'd get if you picked up the bikes I did in such pristine shape, but so completely on the opposite of your spectrum there's no reasonable way in hell you could ever ride them. No real option except to let them go (albeit for nice chunk of coin that could buy at least one in your size, but probably not as pristine/time capsule!)

When I saw it I thought it was one of the Cyclopedia catalogs which I've been casually hunting for (71-72 era when they were listing the L. Bobet and Liotto bikes still). But this was undeniably cool. On the fence - take them to a friend to cut them up and PDF them out to share, or leave intact?

Inflation is a bear, indeed.

No account at VB. But I do have a bunch of pics if you want me to pass along to you to post at VB.

RosyRambler

That's a great score francophile! I so miss the magazines of the 1980's, and even '90's. They had great technical info and the articles were written straight up with out the silly cleverness that seems to be part of most journalism today.

In the '80's I subscribed to Bicycling mag and in the '90's any mountain bike mag that was available. I would cut out any repair, technical, etc. info from the magazine and paste them into 3-ring binders.

It didn't matter if it was multi-page info or a 2"x3" paragraph. If I thought it would help me learn more about bikes, it went into my files. I have a binder for each area/component of a bike. Even Mtb suspension stuff. In hindsight, of course, I wish I'd have saved the whole magazine instead of cutting them to pieces.

I have the 1976 edition of CYCL-OLOGY which is such a treat to browse thru. I miss the days when things were built to be repaired and not just chucked into a landfill when something went wrong with them.

I also have a paperback book by Rand McNally titled, "Bicycles - How They Work And How To Fix Them", published in 1976. It's a great C&V reference. It's loaded with B&W photos and exploded diagrams of every inch of a bicycle. The photos & diagrams all have a copyright from "Schwinn Bicycle Company, Chicago" next to them. The nice gentleman working on the components in the photos is wearing a long white lab coat. Ha! The formalities of a lost generation.

[Quote: "On the fence - take them to a friend to cut them up and PDF them out to share, or leave intact?"]

Tough call on that one. I'd love to be able to see pdfs, but hate to see the originals get messed up.

I recall seeing a website that had a lot of old Bicycling Magazine pages posted that referred to tech and maintenance. I haven't been able to find it though. If anyone knows what I'm referring to and know the link, I'd really appreciate if you could send it to me.

JohnDThompson 

It's your call. I scanned my old VAR catalog and sent it to Sheldon Brown, who put it up on his site, where it seems to have had some appreciation:

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/var/


Today, Velobase would be a likely repository, should you decide to do so.

qcpmsame 

Definitely post them in the VeloBase catalog section @francophile. Those bring back memories from the late 70s and early 80s when I used whichever catalog I had received recently to mentally build bikes. Much less expensive than purchasing from the company, but not remotely as neat as building up a bike from scratch. A Palo Alto catalog was always good for several new builds.

Bill

francophile 

The technical content is awesome. Just look at this stuff from the Big Wheel catalog. Here are higher-res scans: Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet

This catalog is split-loom and I have a split loom binder so I can re-bind, I'll fully scan in a bit and share. Meanwhile, here are the lo-res caps for installing a NR rear mech, Teardown of an Allvit and a Simplex Prestige (or Crit for that matter).

qcpmsame 

The Ibico style binding is always a good sign for me, it can be easily taken apart and then rebound, especially if you have a comb machine and she combs handy should the original break a few tangs. I have a copy of Sutherlands that can be downloaded as a .pdf file that I placed in a 3 ring binder, but the eventual result will be the comb binding since my wife owns a complete setup for her client reports. (the same as your split loom binding system it appears, Ibico is probably just a maker's name.)

Those are some nice collector grade catalogs there, and a great reference source to boot. I use the Sutherlands regularly when I am working on, or searching out a Campagnolo component. Never heard of Big Wheel, Ltd, as a shop or in mail order back in the day, anyone have any background on them?

Bill

steelbikeguy

Mark Bulgier keeps an archive of a lot of old catalogs on his site:
bulgier.net - /pics/bike/Catalogs/

Among the many cool catalogs is my scan of the 11th edition of Cyclo-Pedia. No bikes listed, but lots of other interesting things.
Cyclo-Pedia '74

If you have a full scan of a catalog, I'd recommend contacting Mark and submitting the catalog to his archive.


Steve in Peoria

Kevindale

I don't see any good reason to cut them up. You can convert photos/jpgs to PDFs easily, and with good resolution. Set up a simple down-shooter camera stand with some lighting, get a decent digital camera (super cheap these days with everyone now using their phone), use a piece of glass to keep it flat, set up some simple registration system to keep everything lined up, and you can shoot photos faster than you can scan.

If it's something special, you can also take the photos into a program like photoshop to clean up before putting them out there.

francophile 

Ok, here's 102 pages of catalog goodness folks: https://docdro.id/Q4ShZYs

That link will let you browse the catalog thru your browser, or click the button in the top right-hand corner to download it.

I'll pass it over to Bulgier and VB at some point in the coming days.

2cam16

Time to do some reading! lol
Thanks for sharing your work!!

clubman 

Just glancing through, this is fabu! I think we said that in '71.

thanks

big chainring 

The Big Wheel catalog. That catalog was in my parents basement for 40 years. Thats gotta be from 1967-68. Frejus and Cinelli bikes, full Campy for $175. Think they were in Denver, CO. Had a lot of the Daniel Rebour drawings of TA and Campy parts. Good stuff.

qcpmsame 

@big chainring, That dates to when I was riding my International, and doing the mental builds looking at Palo Alto catalogs one of our club members passed on to me. Those catalogs, and the early Bike Warehouse catalogs got dog eared from being perused, and a Bike Warehouse order for two Bell Biker helmets was our first purchase of anything bicycle away from the LBS. Long time ago, long, long time ago.

Those prices seem unreal today, but putting them into perspective, I didn't make much money as I was at university between leaving the Marines and August 1980. Even as low as they sound I couldn't afford them, and still pay the rent and groceries.

Bill

francophile 

Almost forgot I posted this until someone liked it.

I'm planning on getting off my butt and scanning off a couple more catalogs before this year is over. I'll update this thread again when I have more to add.

Chombi1 

Missed this one when it was posted.
Just noticed the Ad from Wares Cycles with the pic of the unassuming corner store entry with the only windows on the sizable building.
Brought back many memories of me and my younger brother regularly stopping by the store to check out their bikes or get the occasional wheelset tensioned in the 80's when we were in college.
IIRC, they sold other stuff, like toys and other sporting equipment and was very much part of the neighborhood. They also sold a wide spectrum of bikes that included pricier Italian brands and moderately prized Fujis and budget Zebrakenkos. We felt very comfortable and welcomed in the store as it felt like they did not push their high line bikes and accessories on customers and you were not served based on what bikes you were looking at, unlike some other cycle shops in the City.
The store was located in a very "blue collar", suburban area of southwest Milwaukee. Makes me want to go back there and visit the store to bring back memories of my best cycling days, but if I heard correctly, the store had already closed some years ago.

Murray Missile 

Those can be scanned without cutting them up. I've done it many times. It takes a little extra effort but it beats destroying the originals.

When I got my new Raleigh from Wheel Goods in '71 they gave me one. I read the ink off the pages. I've been trying to find one of those from that period for several years now with no luck.

joesch

+1
Wud love an 80s cat