tyler_fred

There are four nice 1984 catalogs currently on eBay under the 'Other Vintage Cycling' section if any of you are interesting in viewing these time capsules. Man! Those prices!!

FYI, I have no ties to the seller.

mstateglfr 

Back when Performance/Nashbar sold a good selection of frames and components. Thats an impressive range of frame brands.


This brings up a question- were a lot of the Italian brands sold thru mail order in the 70s and 80s or did shops carry DeRosa, Guerciotti, Ciocc, etc? Those seem like smaller boutique brands that wouldnt have had wide distribution, so maybe a following in a region like LA, but otherwise I would think shops back then would have been focused on larger and mid-sized brands like now.

Secret Squirrel

Performance bike was a different company with the original owners. Stores like Supergo, REI, and small local shops used to carry Boutique brands. REI carried Rodriguez, Santana, and Tommasini. Supergo carried Davidson, Litespeed. The National brand Copeland Sports used to carry Ciocc and Ritchey. Its was in the 90's that larger stores decided to carry the big brands and their own house brands. At least this was the case in the Los Angeles area.

TiHabanero

I spent hours upon hours studying the pages of Performance catalogs while onboard ship in the US Navy. Even sneeked a few down into the hole while on watch! The other guys were polluting their minds with Playboys, and laughed at my obsession with bikes. They will never understand that bike porn is far more addictive!

tyler_fred

Did anyone notice that Shimano components are almost non-existent in these catalogs?

nomadmax 

Ten Speed Drive Imports in Florida/California was responsible for a large percentage of the Italian bikes that came into this country during that time. That's where my local dealer who sponsored our team got our frames. I'd have to guess that's where Performance, Nashbar, Branford Bike, Colorado Cyclist, Excel Sports etc got them as well. There was also a big Guerciotti importer in NOLA, Gus Betat.

A lot of frames were sold as "mail order brides"

Rocket-Sauce 

Whoa, that brings me back.

Link assist: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Performance...gAAOSwrwdc6uzI

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Performance...0AAOSwKU1c6uvl

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Performance...cAAOSwk7Rc6vJp

Chombi1 

Thank you very much for posting the old PBS catalogues! They bring back a lot of memories.
I remember my brother and I drooling on those catalogues in the early 80's when we were in college. We were typical poor college kids that could never afford most of the stuff in them. But part of the fun was seeing and dreaming of owning all that cool stuff. Once in a while we were able to buy decent items from them that were on clearance sale at the end of the season. Still remember the excitement we experienced waiting those typical two long weeks to get the packages from Chapel Hill, NC.
It was kinda sad for me then when PBS went out of business last year as they were a big part of my early cycling days.

T-Mar

While the Guerciotti and Ciocc in the catalogue would have been obtained through Ten Speed Drive, the De Rosa, Pinarello and Eddy Merckx would have been sourced from Gita Sporting Goods. Other independent distributors of Italian bicycles of the era were Corso (Atala, Bottechia), Wm. Lewis (Tommasini, Zullo), Bicycle Parts Pacific (Olmo, Sannino), Lee Katz (Basso), Mel Pinto (Alan) , Torelli ( Faggin, Torelli). By this time many Italian brands had set up their own USA distribution, including Bianchi, Masi, Benotto and Gios. The one major Italian brand whose distribution escapes me is Colnago. Regardless, I'd be hard pressed to place TSD even in the top three.

Mr. Spadoni 

Interesting catalogs. First thought was that I might have pull mine out and put them on EBay!

A couple of other things came to mind. First, the lack of Shimano is not surprising. Exchange rate between the yen and the dollar was not every good at time, so if the choice was to buy Shimano or Campy, Campy was a better deal. Plus it was cooler.

Also, price on the frames. That 650 DeRosa is about 1600 in today’s dollars. Not a bad price of a steel frame, but that’s somewhere above 2 grand for a bike. Gotta wonder how many they sold.

streetstomper

At the time, Shimano just wasn't seen as very good. They had some innovations, but most people just saw their components as gimmicky, with mediocre quality. Campy Nuovo Record was the tried and true that the champions rode on, with good performance, reliability and serviceability. You could order just about any small part to rebuild any NR component. Pro racers basically avoided Shimano. That changed starting in 1984 when Shimano introduced what they called New Dura Ace, featuring indexed shifting that really worked. They had previously dabbled in indexed shifting with Dura Ace AX, but with the indexing mechanism in the rear derailleur, so it was subject to the vagaries of cable stretch and friction. New Dura Ace was a revelation. It worked great and Shimano put a massive effort into making it durable, with gorgeous, sleek, modern designs rather than Campy's dated look that hadn't changed in many years, and top of the line finishes. It got them rave reviews in the magazines, and along with aggressive sponsorship and racing victories in the next few years, showed they had become a force to be reckoned with. The rest is history.

That wouldn't explain the presence of Suntour on those pages.

Mr. Spadoni 

I was thinking Shimano, as in DA level vs. Campy. Campy was a better deal on price than DA at the time. Plus it was way more appealing to the racer customer as it did not change like Shimano did at the time. Anyone remember Shimano 10 mm pitch chain or the AX pedals that would fit only DA cranks?
Suntour was a lower priced alternative. So what if parts were not available? 12.95 for an RD vs. 70 for campy? If you needed to replace an RD, you could do that and still have tire money. Plus Suntour seems like they would earn their spot by having some non racing choices.
Given what was available at the time , whoever made the selection for the catalogue did an acceptable job.

T-Mar

In my experience, the absence of Shimano in some of these early 1980s mail order catalogues had nothing to do with Campagnolo and everything to do with SunTour. The mail order companies survived by supplying avid cyclists with mid to high end products. They rarely carried entry level products. Campagnolo was mandatory for the high end at the time but the Japanese offered better value in the mid-range. Most didn't have the finances and/or storage to stock a complete range of both Shimano and SunTour, so a choice had to be made.

SunTour had the superior performing slant parallelogram derailleurs and operated on lower profit margins that resulted in lower wholesale and retail prices. Consequently, they were the preferred choice for entry level and mid-range bicycle manufacturers in the early 1980s and had the majority share of the derailleur market. With SunTour being spec'd on more bicycles than Shimano and having lower prices, they were the obvious choice for most mail order companies that couldn't stock a range of both Shimano and SunTour.

Things would quickly derail for SunTour over a very short period. The expiry of the slant parallelogram patent allowed Shimano to incorporate it into their SIS indexed system at a time when when kinks were starting to appear in SunTour's armour. First there was a rash of MounTech failures and then the rushed to market Accushift proved far inferior to SIS. The majority of bicycle designers lost their faith in SunTour and switched almost completely to Shimano. The consumers liked the new Shimano equipped bicycles that were being offered and the mail order companies followed suit.