Wordless Wednesday
January 4, 2012 15 Comments
Flashback Friday – Road Components in 1987
July 11, 2011 3 Comments
Inspired by today’s date, 7/11, we’ve decided to make today Flashback Monday, instead of waiting for our usual Flashback Friday. In today’s post we’re going to look back at road components in the Performance Bicycle catalog of the late 1980s (1987, to be precise).
So why did we post on today’s date? Well, we couldn’t resist paying homage to the 7-Eleven team, the first professional American cycling team to compete in the Tour de France (in 1986). Organized by Jim Ochowicz, and with a fun-loving group of riders including Alex Stieda, Eric Heiden, Bob Roll, Ron Kiefel, Chris Carmichael and Davis Phinney, the 7-Eleven team laid the groundwork for the growth and success of American professional cycling. But, as you can see in the following video, they had a bit of a roller coaster ride in their very first Tour:
So with the 7-Eleven team in mind, we thought we’d delve into our archives to share a few pages from our Summer 1987 catalog, to see what kind of components you could get after you were inspired to ride by watching America’s first pro team in France:
But before you got your components, you first had to get a kit that looked the part. We had you covered with our own pro-inspired gear featuring the top teams of the day (like 1986 Tour winner Greg Lemond‘s La Vie Claire team):
But we’re here to talk parts, so let’s get started with cranksets. In 1987 you had many manufacturers to choose from, including Suntour, Sugino, Campagnolo and Shimano, all with elegant cold-forged style crankarms. Of note was the Sugino crankset, which featured a carbon-fiber reinforced outer chainring:
As we move on to brake levers and brakes, you’ll find no integrated shift/brake lever setups, as road bikes were still using downtube-mounted levers to handle the shifting duties. But you could choose from brakesets made by Shimano, Campagnolo and Modolo, an Italian brand whose brakesets had a definite sense of panache (or maybe we’re just suckers for black):
When it came time to complete your component setup with a rear derailleur, your options were manifold, as evidenced by our offerings from Suntour, Sugino, Mavic, Campagnolo, Shimano and Huret. Of note here was the increasing prevalence of indexed shifting systems (where one click of the shifter meant one gear shift), instead of the old-style friction shifting (where you had to listen for the chain as it shifted gears). Also interesting is the (at the time) “worlds lightest derailleur”, the Huret Jubilee, item K below. At 146 grams, it would still be lighter than SRAM Red or Campy Carbon Record!
After all this focus on components, though, we couldn’t resist sharing a few pages of the road bikes we had on offer in 1987. Hailing from our own Performance brand of bikes, we had the Corsa frameset, featuring lugged aluminum tubing. Available with an array of custom build kits, the Corsa was a true race-ready steed:
But if your taste was for a bike with European flair, we had you covered there as well, with beautiful bikes from Eddy Merckx, De Rosa and Pinarello. In case you’re wondering, the lovely paint job on the Pinarello is called “Spumoni” after the tasty Italian dessert:
We hope you enjoyed our quick trip back in time to check out road components from our catalog during the time of the 7-Eleven team. It’s always fun for us to look back at where we came from as we work to bring you the best cycling value and selection in the present day!
Flashback Friday Revisited – Performance Campione
March 25, 2011 5 Comments
This Friday we’ve decided to revisit one of our past Flashback Friday posts, in response to a number of questions we’ve received here on our blog. Ever since our Flashback Friday – Fall/Winter 1984-85 post, people have been writing to us with questions about the Performance Campione frame that was featured in that catalog (and post). Apparently there are still quite a few of these beauties out there on the road (or recently discovered hiding in someone’s basement!), and if you take a look at the frame, you can see why:
With Columbus SL tubing and a classic red and chrome color scheme, the Performance Campione was built to last! It turns out that we have perfect evidence of this durability right here at our headquarters; the personal Performance Campione of Garry Snook (the founder of Performance Bicycle) is parked in the hallway by our lobby! As you can see below, it still looks sharp:
But the questions that we received about the Campione mainly focused on who made the frame. After a quick call to Garry Snook’s brother, Richard (who you can see here, wrenching on Campione frame), we discovered that the key clue to where it came from is stamped underneath the bottom bracket shell:
The “BMZ” stamp stands for Biemmezeta, an Italian bicycle manufacturer that used to be located near Milan, Italy. So the Performance Campione is definitely an Italian-made bike!
As the first bike to carry the Performance name, we’re proud of the Campione and the heritage it represents. If you have any pictures of your Campione, we’d love to see them; post your pictures on our Facebook wall!
Flashback Friday – Mountain Bikes from 1993
October 8, 2010 2 Comments
It’s about time for another Flashback Friday, and since our local Triangle Fat Tire Festival is coming up (Saturday, October 16th), we thought we’d look back at a little Performance mountain bike history. Our subject for today is the Spring 1993 catalog, which sported a cover with classic Onza barends, an XTR crank, and a Manitou 2 suspension fork artfully placed in the middle of a stream (no word on what happened to the rest of the bike… or the rider):
First up in the catalog (and also straddling a stream) was the high-end M003 model mountain bike, which forgoes a suspension fork (although the goemetry is suspension-ready) but was fully kitted out with a Shimano XTR drivetrain. Weight for this True Temper AVR chromoly-tubed beauty: a respectable 22.5 pounds (ditching a suspension fork was the only way to keep the weight down in this era).
Next up were our more budget-friendly offerings. The M103 model also had a tig-welded chromoly frame, but featured a Rock Shox Quadra suspension fork and a Shimano Deore XT grouppo. The M203 mountain bike was our “downhill mountain bike racing” model, with a 7000 series aluminum frame, although we’re guessing that the elastomer rear suspension was not exactly ready for the Red Bull Rampage. Our last model was the M303, our budget Shimano Deore LX-equipped bike, but still light enough for easy stair-portaging.
But that brings us to the sweet lineup of suspension forks that we offered in 1993. As you can see, we had it all: a full range from RST (whose forks featured a choice between steel springs, elastomers, or air/oil damping), the heavy-duty looking Tange Shockblades, the somewhat-terrifying (yet 2-time world cup champion) Allsop Frankenstem, the Rock Shox Quadra and Mag 21, along with the always reliable Manitou 2. The 2 standouts on the page have to be the Manitou 2 and the Rock Shox Mag 21; if you were looking to upgrade your fork in 1993, it was bound to be one of these 2 forks that you lusted after (suspension travel for these beauties: 2″-2.5″).
It wasn’t just suspension forks that were being upgraded, as Shimano’s SPD pedals were “quickly becoming the standard among off-road enthusiasts”. But those neon toe-straps are ripe for a comeback!
And who could forget the Scott AT series handlebars. You could get integrated barends with the AT-2 & AT-3 models, but why stop there when you could go all out with the AT-4 model, with a full-on, wrap-around aero-esque extension. These bars were really used in serious competition, too, as you can see in this story about the 1990 World Championships in Durango, CO (just check out the 3rd photo).
Finally, this last catalog selection has absolutely nothing to do with mountain bike history, but we just couldn’t resist sharing. Behold the glory that is the Performance Durango Trail Shield. Yes, that is a headband with a snap-on sunglass lens, and yes, we did actually use the tagline: “Have you ever wanted eye protection that didn’t hit the dirt just because you did?”
We hope you enjoyed our brief look back at mountain biking in 1993, but remember that if you want to see the future of mountain biking (and you are in the Chapel Hill, NC area), be sure to stop by the Triangle Fat Tire Festival on Saturday, October 16th.
Performance will be there in force with a great selection of 2011 mountain bikes to test ride and check out. We’ll bring along our Access mountain bikes (including samples of our new line of carbon 29ers, which look fantastic), and our friends from Fuji, Breezer and GT will be there too with mountain bikes from their 2011 lineups. There will also be a 6 hour endurance mountain bike race plus a whole host of other events to keep the entire family entertained/distracted (while you check out the bikes)! We hope to see you there.
Flashback Friday – Cover Model Lance
July 9, 2010 5 Comments
Way back in 1992, before the big comeback with Team Radioshack, before the 7 Tour de France titles, before the comeback from cancer, even before turning pro and winning the World Road Championships in 1993, Lance Armstrong was a Performance Bicycle cover model for our Summer catalog!
This catalog cover dates to a time way before Lance was a global icon and standard fare on many a magazine cover, although he was already a highly successful amateur bike racer in his own right. As you may have guessed from the Skittles USA team jersey, this catalog came out during the lead up to the 1992 Summer Olympic Games, where Lance would go on to finish 14th in the Road Race (the top American). Performance was the official bike supplier of the US Cycling Team for the Summer Games, so we took the opportunity to give a young up-and-comer some exposure on our catalog cover, oddly enough modeling our Synapse mountain bike!
But this wasn’t the only time we put Lance on the cover in 1992, as we also used this group shot of Lance and 3 other riders from Team USA (cropped from what was actually a promotional photo for Descente clothing). Can you name the other 3 riders in the photo (the answer is below the photo)?
Flashback Friday – Helmets from the ’80s
May 28, 2010 3 Comments
Ah, the ’80s, an era that gave us hairstyles as varied as teased bangs, the rocker mullet, the side ponytail, and the always classic Flock of Seagulls. But all this reminiscing about hair brings us around to our subject of helmets, and, as you can read in this Bicycling magazine article,the bicycle helmet saw its fair share of changes in the decade of the ’80s as well. Looking back through the pages of our catalog archives, you can trace that evolution as it progressed from the humble leather “hairnet” to the high-tech (for it’s day) original Giro Prolight. Sadly no mullets made an appearance on our models.
Here in one of our earliest catalogs, from 1983, you can see the full assortment of hard shell bike helmets available. The Bell Biker, top left, was the very first bicycle helmet made of expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam bonded to a hard plastic shell. One major drawback with the Bell Biker, other than the size and weight, was that the overhang from the shell was so big that you could barely see when you were down in the drops. Our personal favorite from this era was the Brancale Sport helmet, top right, but only because it looks like the one worn by Belov in American Flyers!
But for the racing enthusiast of the day, hard shell helmets were still too heavy and poorly ventilated. The leather “hairnet” style helmet still ruled the peleton, as ably demonstrated in this vintage photo of “Breakaway” Bob, one of the distributors in our bike division. Basically thin strips of foam wrapped in leather, these lightweight helmets provided relatively little impact protection. Read more of this post
Flashback Friday 1987 – Pedals 2.0
May 13, 2010 2 Comments
In 1987, the world of technology and innovation was marching on. Nike released their first Air Max sneakers to change the way we looked at shoe cushioning, the very earliest version of Photoshop was developed by a PhD student at the University of Michigan, and Windows 2.0 was rolled out by Microsoft (much to the dismay of Apple). Of course the world of cycling was no different, and some of the greatest advances of this time period were made in the realm of what is now the most ubiquitous of cycling parts, the clipless pedal.
As you can see on the catalog cover above, here at Performance we were not afraid to embrace new technology. At the top of the page you can see a La Vie Claire model LOOK shoe, Aerolite pedals (more on this later), and a “Darth Vader” style Bell Stratos helmet.
Flashback Friday – 1985 Recycled
May 6, 2010 13 Comments
1985… Madonna becomes the second female artist to have the top single (“Like A Virgin”, if you had to ask) and top album at the same time, and she goes on to be the top-selling act of the year. So in honor of the “Material Girl”, we present the latest edition of our Flashback Friday series, this time all about the materials (clothing material, that is) from our Spring 1985 catalog:
As you can see from the cover, bright and bold colors were the norm (as well as perfectly coordinated color-matching with your bike, apparently!)
Flashback Friday – Fall/Winter 1984-85
April 23, 2010 9 Comments
Fashion model by day & copywriter by night! Chuck Lewis has been at Performance since nearly the beginning of our company, so we asked him to write up a few memories about the Fall/Winter 1984-85 catalog:
“Back in the early days Richard Snook and I shared copy writing responsibilities, frame prepping and wheel building skills, and even provided the occasional talent for catalog photos.” Read more of this post
Flashback Friday – Spring/Summer 1983
March 19, 2010 2 Comments
Moving right along with our Flashback Fridays we find ourselves at our second ever catalog – Spring/Summer 1983. Here are some fun page details:
True made-in-Italy framesets (which came with a front derailleur, of course) and custom build kits. Obviously we were a much smaller company then (though we’ve been considering heading in this direction again sometime in the future – comments?). How about a frame with a full Campy Super Record group for $765.00? It goes without saying that bicycle technology has come a long way and there’s also inflation to consider, but you can’t even get just a Record Crankset for $765 these days! Read more of this post
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Fuji Pro Team
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