Gene Portuesi's Cyclopedia 1974
Index Page 1 of 6

From the 1940s through the early '70s, cycling was still going through the Dark Ages in the United States. The general perception was that bicycles were toys for children.

For those few adults who understood and loved cycling, the late Gene Portuesi's catalogue was a beacon of hope in the darkness, one of the very few written references available in the U.S. dealing with adult bicycles. This was my bible as a teenage; I hope you enjoy this look backward, by courtesy of Gene's family. -- Sheldon Brown

Portuesi family photos and a bit of history on another page...

[Cyclopedia's influence on Sheldon continued past the 1970s.

It is likely that Sheldon learned wheelbuilding and other skills from Portuesi's instructions. But even more telling, Portuesi's business model -- selling hard-to-find bicycle components by mail order -- was the same one that Sheldon established in 1995 for Harris Cyclery, now with telephone and e-mail help for Internet customers. Publicity and the market were now worldwide, thanks to sheldonbrown.com.. As bicycling had grown and diversified, local bicycle shops had a wider variety of offerings, but these shops still could not supply anything and everything conveniently and locally. Other mail-order cycling retailers sold common items, in quanitity. Sheldonbrown.com filled a special niche.

For the full catalog, click "Next", above to proceed to the other pages of the index, or click through the pages one by one. As of now, these pages are not yet formatted to display well on a mobile device in portrait mode. That wasn't a concern when Sheldon created them in 2004. We might get around to it sometime...In the meantime, hold the phone in landscape mode. You'll get a larger, more detailed image that way anyway.

Most illustrations in the catalog are recognizable as the work of the great French cycling illustrator Daniel Rebour. To create each highly detailed and accurate image, Rebour used a photograph as a template, drawing in pen and ink on a translucent overlay. He is also known as the originator of the treatment "Rodée main selon Rebour" ("Broken in by hand, Rebour method") used by Idéale for its leather saddles. This collection includes a Rebour illustration of a Rebour-treated saddle.

The pages of the catalog are scanned at a width of 800 pixels, but Sheldon took the trouble to create enlargements of some of the Rebour illustrations. Some of the enlagements are on this page and some are along with the pages where they appear. Sheldon may have been providing illustrations for the Harris Cyclery commercial pages or taken interest in the images themselves. -- John Allen, June 2025]