Chic Duds on Two Wheels

By Gordon M. Henry

Bicycle riding in America no longer means throwing on dungaree cutoffs and a T shirt and hitting the road on a scuffed-up ten-speed. More and more cyclists are plunking down big money for flashy, funky uniforms that hug the figure and such accessories as helmets, shoes and kneepads.

Manufacturers estimate the U.S. bike- clothing market at $30 million and say it is growing by 25% annually. The suppliers include more than 50 companies, from Japan's Descente and France's Le Coq Sportif to America's Protogs, Cannondale and L.L. Bean. Some 60% of the 6,500 bicycle shops in the U.S. now carry clothing next to the tubes and pumps, as compared with only about one-third ten years ago.

Gadgets designed to enhance the cyclist's performance have also become top sellers. Japan's Cateye makes a $66 solar-powered magnetic device that tells a % biker the average speed and distance traveled. San Diego-based SkidLid Manufacturing produces a $52 helmet with a rear-view mirror. There are even accessories for babies: the $30 L'il Bell Shell helmet is designed for tots riding on the back of their parent's bike.

Retailers agree that cycling is hot on the trail of jogging and skiing as a full-fledged consumer sport. Profit margins, they say, are higher on clothing and accessories than on bicycles. When industry executives and dealers gathered in Las Vegas last October for their annual convention, the program kicked off not with a display of bikes but with a fashion show of cycling togs modeled by the Los Angeles Rams cheerleaders. Says Stephen Ready, executive director of the National Bicycle Dealers Association: "There is a renaissance in the bicycle industry that is being led by chic clothing."

The colors, fabrics and shapes seen on bikes could be straight out of Marvel Comics. Alitta, a company based in a loft in New York City's SoHo district, markets a $65 red, white, blue and yellow riding suit that Superman might admire. Dozens of companies offer skintight shorts and for triathlons, events that require running, biking and swimming, suits made of shimmery synthetics in colors like taupe and copper. Jerseys come with two or three pockets for carrying small cargo, and shoes are designed to distribute pressure along the foot. Gloves are usually cut off above the knuckles, Oliver Twist-style, to enhance dexterity.

Some stores, deciding that clothes make the cyclist, have dispensed with stocking bikes altogether. The Bicycle Outfitter, a Los Altos, Calif., retailer, launched a clothing-only store in Sausalito, outside San Francisco, five months ago and has just opened another one in Concord, near Oakland. Fittingly, these haberdasheries look like boutiques more than bike shops, with dressing rooms, mirrors, carpeted floors and female personnel to help women customers feel as if they are buying haute couture rather than sporting goods.

The popularity of biking took off after the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, and it shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, the craze is becoming as much a social as an athletic phenomenon. Says Cyclist Lenny Goodman of Fountain Valley, Calif.: "I see a lot of people in really fancy clothing not doing much riding, just standing around talking."

Such fads have a way of fading, but sellers of cycling goods are not worried. Some companies confidently predict that people who do not even own bicycles will soon be buying tri-suits as leisure wear. If that happens, the fast-moving biking business may have a long way to roll.

As their elders relive the childhood joys of biking, some young children are climbing behind the wheel of their own automobiles. Precocious tots, especially in California, are tooling around driveways and parks in faithfully downsized versions of Porsches, Ferraris and other exotic cars driven by their parents. A Beverly Hills luxury-car dealer, Rodeo Coach, in the past six months has sold more than 130 miniatures.

One line of kiddie luxury cars, produced in Italy by Agostini Autojunior, features leather seats, hydraulic disk brakes and two-speed stick shifts. Powered by a 3-h.p. lawn-mower-type engine, the little cars provide a foretaste of life on the fast track. They can reach top speeds of 35 m.p.h., presumably on a large estate or go-cart track. Among the minimodels are a Porsche 911 and a Ferrari Mondial, each about $5,000, and a Lamborghini Countach, priced at $12,500. They are currently available at luxury-car dealers in Miami, New York City and several other areas.

Parents who drive a prosaic Ford or Chevrolet can also buy their children matching minicars. F.W. Leisure of Tempe, Ariz., manufactures about 40 different models, ranging in price from $895 to $1,295. The company sells about 11,000 cars a year.

More elaborate minivehicles are on the way. A British firm, J.P. Products, has begun marketing a tiny trailer home that can be towed by a kiddie car. The Miniature Echo Caravan ($4,000), which is expected to go on sale in the U.S. next year, contains a working sink, electric lights and upholstered furniture.

With reporting by Stephen Koepp/Los Angeles, with other bureaus