I don’t remember how I developed an interest in cycling back in the early 1970’s. At one point I lived in East Lansing, Michigan and worked in nearby Lansing. Without a car and with intermittent bus service I needed a reliable way to get to work. I bought a Schwinn Varsity back when Schwinn made decent bikes. That bike was stolen but I enjoyed riding enough that I searched for a new bike. I came across a reference to a bike shop catalog published by Gene Portuesi called Cyclopedia. I pored over the drawings of bicycle parts and the articles about all things bike. I vaguely remember traveling to his shop and buying imported bikes for my wife and me.
Today I found copies of the 1974 Cyclopedia catalog that I owned on Sheldon Brown’s site. I think Gene was an early importer of quality European bikes but there is not much info on the web that I’ve found other than a few references to his bike shop in Detroit and later Caddilac, Michigan. Maybe it’s time for a wikipedia entry…