Bicycle history -- and cost comparison

There's an article about bicycle history in today's Chicago
Tribune (free registration required):
http://www.chicagotribune.com/classi...motive/chi-050
1020457jan02,1,6899715.story

Key fun facts:
"Bicycling reached a fever pitch in 1890, when the
high-wheeled Ordinary was replaced by the modern safety
bicycle with two equal-sized wheels. Developed in 1884 by an
English mechanic named John Kemp Starley, the safety bike
caught on in Europe before coming to America.

"In 1893, Schwinn established his bicycle factory. ... By
1899 Schwinn was producing a million bicycles each year....

"In the 1890s, a top-of-the-line Schwinn started at $150. A
used Monarch cycle cost $150, and the Chicago Inter-Ocean
advertised a tandem model for $150, half of a working-man's
annual wage.

"The best-dressed cycle of that time wore a brass kerosene
lamp ($2.25), had one or two spare tires ($6.50 each) and a
tire repair kit (5 cents)."

The price comparison gives one pause. I would guess that,
given a choice between that $150 Schwinn and a $150 Schwinn
at *Mart, most of us would prefer to ride today's Schwinn.
(Wood rims, anyone?). Nashbar has several tires below $10.
It wasn't such a golden age of bicycling then ... unless you
had a lot of gold.


--
Mike Kruger
Too many people spend money they haven't earned
to buy things they don't want
to impress people they don't like. -Will Rogers

Very interesting! Thanks Mike. I wince at what I paid to own a Serotta--but
then again...

Someone on bikeforums.net showed this site

http://www.exploratorium.edu/cycling/

which not only explains the science of bicycling but bike cost of 120
years ago and such along with the technology of the 1800's.

But even as a kid, I remember the cheapest 10 speed I could get was
about $100 at Sears 30 years ago. Today you can buy a 15 speed for about
$60 new and work up from there.

Mike Kruger quoted -

"In the 1890s, a top-of-the-line Schwinn started at $150. A
used Monarch cycle cost $150, and the Chicago Inter-Ocean
advertised a tandem model for $150, half of a working-man's
annual wage.

A basic inflation calculator run from 1893 to 2003 translates $150 in 1893
to $2930.42 in 2003 - used the calculator at
http://www.westegg.com/inflation/

$2900 would get you a nice bike, but maybe not "top of the line" depending
on how you define that nebulous concept.

Interesting how much more average wages have increased.

best, Andrew

Mike Kruger wrote:

The price comparison gives one pause. I would guess that,
given a choice between that $150 Schwinn and a $150 Schwinn
at *Mart, most of us would prefer to ride today's Schwinn.
(Wood rims, anyone?). Nashbar has several tires below $10.
It wasn't such a golden age of bicycling then ... unless you
had a lot of gold.

ISTR the original Stumpjumper sold for $800 20 years ago, and likewise would
hardly be competition for today's $99 Walmart specials. When I got into
mountain biking in the mid-late 80s, modern geometry was still avant- garde. To
get it you had to shell out for a boutique frame like a Fat or a Yeti, or suffer
with a sluggish handling Repack-racer clone, with clunky, unreliable components.

I'm waiting for STI/Ergo equipped road bikes to break the $500 barrier. I saw a
Sora equipped Schwinn Fastback the other day at Performance for $499 on sale.
If they could lop a hundred bucks off these, I'm sure we'd have a lot more
roadies out there.

Matt O.

PSB wrote:

Today you can buy a 15 speed for about
$60 new and work up from there.

Is that the Deathrap 2004 Deluxe?

In article ,
"Andrew Price" wrote:

Mike Kruger quoted -

"In the 1890s, a top-of-the-line Schwinn started at $150. A
used Monarch cycle cost $150, and the Chicago Inter-Ocean
advertised a tandem model for $150, half of a working-man's
annual wage.

A basic inflation calculator run from 1893 to 2003 translates $150 in 1893
to $2930.42 in 2003 - used the calculator at
http://www.westegg.com/inflation/

$2900 would get you a nice bike, but maybe not "top of the line" depending
on how you define that nebulous concept.

There are far more expensive bicycles. Broadly speaking, the MSRP of
"Team" bikes, that is, the bikes that are identical in frame and
equipment* to those ridden by elite teams, is about US$3000-5000. That
said, I would still rather ride a bike that cost $1000 today than any
bike available in 1893, from a purely functional standpoint.

$2900 would see you into a large number of Ultegra-equipped models and a
small number of Dura-Ace models (substitute equivalent Campy groups
depending on location and prediliction) at MSRP, and rather a larger
group of bikes at some combination of actual selling prices, discounted
prices, and race team sponsorship (let me plug our sponsors, Cannondale
and Bicycle Sports Pacific, who offer our team a very generous discount
on race bikes each year).

*Cheating on sponsors with re-labeled bikes and gear has a long and
illustrious history in cycling, and far be it from me to discount it.
But I think it's a reasonable assumption that, oh, Trek, Cannondale,
Cervélo, BMC, and Giant really are supplying all (or almost all) of the
bikes for their teams. This isn't meant to indict Decathlon so much as
suggest I don't know enough about their bikes to decisively identify
them in photos. Some equipment, especially disc wheels, are still often
unlabeled or relabeled. Ask Steve Hed. And just to complicate things
further, some of these companies build custom geometry versions of their
frames for certain riders, a service which they decline to provide to
the proletariat. Trek claims not to be able to do so economically, and I
believe them, but for the makers whose products are largely aluminum,
it's a more feasible proposition.
--
Ryan Cousineau, http://www.wiredcola.com
Verus de parvis; verus de magnis.