[AT] OT Bicycle mechanics.
charlie hill
chill8 at cox.net
Wed May 24 16:29:54 PDT 2006
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
More information about the AT
mailing list