I am about to move my TREK 500 bike parts (Sakae/Suntour) over to an Alan aluminum frame, and put a Campagnolo Victory crankset on as well. But then i got to thinking : I believe it was almost impossible to find a stock bicycle in the 1970's and 1980's with this type of mixed set of european and italian parts. For example, european cranks and japanese derailleurs. Perhaps Trek did it (their bikes were true mongrels) but very few other makers did it.
Can someone "in the know" tell me why this was ?? Were there steep discounts for buying grouppos in volume, or were there discounts (payoffs) on Italian parts) if they were used on bikes without Japanese parts (or vice-versa) for the manufacturers ??
Or was it simply a matter of supply-lines because Japan and Europe are on opposite sides of the world, and the only place it made sense was at Schwinn (e.g. paramounts with Dia-Compe brakes?)
- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA