I love that Slowman has dug these up! Numbers are fun! Nostalgic numbers more so!
...
BUT it makes me a little sad for the sake of some of the companies that show up in those old rankings. And, for whatever reason, for Kestrel in particular. Those bikes were so bad ass! So were the forks! Then...they made the Talon. Then the UCI and superbikes killed the forks. Then they abandoned everything but the Talon. Qua? Then the company died. Then it got conglomerated. Then they made a new 4000! Then they ran over it with the Norcom Straight...nice bike, but not bad ass. And for some reason they still have the Talon. The molds are so old, the latest bikes must be 1/4" bigger in every dimension. They really just need to go Atari on that albatross and bury the lot in a hole in the desert.