[AT] OT Bicycle mechanics.

[charlie hill]

My last post on the Yanmar thread got me to thinking.   How many folks on 
the list remember mechanics shop that worked on bicycles?
Yeah I know they have modern bike shops now but I'm talking about a guy that 
had a little garage and all he did was repair bicycles and maybe an 
occasional washing machine or something.

I grew up just outside a town of less than 1000 people and in the 50's and 
60's there was a man there that had a little shop behind his house.  He 
mainly just worked on bicycles.  Not only would he tighten your  spokes or 
put on a tire he also would rebuild the crank assembly or the "clutches and 
combings" (I think that's what he called them) in the rear hub of older 
bikes.  Apparently there was a big change in the design of the hubs along 
about the mid 50's and they became a lot more reliable and didn't need much 
repair.  By that time this fellow had gotten pretty old and was ready to 
slow down anyway.

He was a nice old fellow.  I guess it was in the mid to late 70's he walked 
into one of the hardware stores in town and asked the price of copper 
tubing.  Copper had gone way up.  The store owner told him the price.  The 
fellow grabbed his chest and fell out dead right there in the store.  It 
shook the store owner up pretty bad.  He told me later on "If I'd know it 
was gonna kill him I'd have given him the damn copper"

If anyone remembers about those old bicycles set me straight on them.  I was 
born in '50 so by the time I got my first real bike they were pretty 
"modern". grins

Charlie