Originally Posted by bikingshearer

Well, it certainly got bigger in the intervening four years. Better? That, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

I looooved seeing the letter from Peter Rich hawking the Tour of California. This was a couple years before I got into the sport, but when I did, the ToC was legendary in my neck of the woods (Livermore CA) and Peter Rich's Velo Sport was one of the handful of top-drawer go-to shops in the Bay Area. The word on the street was that Rich nearly went broke putting on the race. He never tried to do it again and nothing remotely like it existed until the SF Grand Prix one day pro race came around for a few years on the 2000s (killed by local back-handed politics - it's a pretty shady story) and then the Amgen ToC (apparently to be no more).

It was also fun to see mention of a 10 mile record set by Nicola Farac-Ban, the "Bike Barb" of Bay Area cycling notoriety. I never met him, but I heard some of the stories second and third hand. If they were 50% true, he was quite a character (and a very talented racer).

As always, thanks, @SpeedofLite. Seeing these old mags is always a big treat.