Just scanning ads for lunch, here's one for Longman, this is from 1981, 37,250 must have been $149.00 USD back in 1981, now a days it would be closer to $372.00 USD. As a kid the Schwinns were king in the 70's but then the movie Breaking Away came out around 1977 and Italian 10-Speed Bikes were the rage, shortly after Japanese Bikes started showing up and Schwinn starting disappearing, there used to be a store or two in every town. The Schwinn Varsity and higher-end Continental bikes were everywhere, I had some one give me a mint Varsity around 92 but I gave it to a buddy that had his driving privilages restricted......
I bought one of these new back in 1978 https://www.flickr.com/photos/mikealaska/5861300836/in/photostream/ I don't recall the exact price but am sure it was quite a bit over £100, maybe £129. At the time I considered getting a Honda Express which was £199, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Express but waited until I was 17 and could then get a proper (i.e. a whole 100cc) Motorbike. For some reason I didn't consider buying anything second hand until I got a car (as new cars were completely out of my reach). Considering the number of problems I had with that 7 year old car maybe my original hunch was right. Bikes were too big to be sold in Argos who typically only had small shops. Here is what Kays (who put an emphasis on weekly repayments rather than low prices) had in their 1982 catalogue. Being Made in Britain, Raleigh were by far the most popular brand here back then.
Raleigh's were pretty big here although I didn't anybody that had one, I feel like they were more of an "adult" bike. I feel like my crappy Sears Adult 3-Speed might have been a Raleigh Bike rebranded for Sears. Over here everyone bought new and usually held on to it until it was outgrown or didn't work but you only wanted a few things not like today.
