The Best Reason To Close A Shop

Forty years ago yesterday, a bike shop was closed for, possibly, the best reason any shop could have been closed on a Saturday during the summer—on the last weekend before Labor Day, no less.

How do I know about that closure?  I worked in that shop. In fact, the day before was my last day there. 

On 27 August 1983, I accompanied the shop’s owner, his soon-to-be wife and a bunch of our friends and customers on a chartered bus from New Brunswick, New Jersey to Washington, D.C. The purpose of the trip? To join many, many more people in commemorating the 20th anniversary of the March on Washington:  the one that includes Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech.

Actually, the anniversary was the day after our trip—a Sunday.  But that didn’t make a difference to those of us who participated—and those who supported us.

Among those supporters were, not surprisingly, Black city residents who gave us sandwiches, snacks, fruit, water, coffee, tea, juice, sun visors and other things that helped us on a typically hot, humid day. I couldn’t help but to wonder how many of them were there—or marched—during the original rally, which took place a few weeks after I turned five. (OK, you can do the math, if you are so inclined!)

Today, on the sixtieth anniversary of the March—and the day after the fortieth anniversary of the best shop closure in history—I can’t help but to wonder how many of the people I saw that day, let alone how many marched in the original gathering, are still alive.  To the best of my knowledge, the shop’s owner—Frank Chrinko—and Wendy Novak, the woman who would become his wife, are still very much with us—and should be lauded for having the best reason to close Highland Park Cyclery on a day when, I think, they could have made a decent amount of coin.

R.I.P. Bruce Gordon

I had been cycling just long enough to know that the frame was different from any other I had seen.

Like nearly all quality lightweight bicycles of the time, it was built from high-grade steel tubing (in this case, Reynolds 531) joined by lugs.  And there was nothing unusual about the finish, a pleasing but not flashy bluish-green, unadorned by pinstripes, bands or any other kind of markers.  It didn't even have a decal bearing the name of its maker.

What I could see, though, were that the lugs--the longpoint "fishmouth" style popular at the time--were more meticulously finished than on any other frame I'd seen.  And the paint had a "quality" look that made my Peugeot PX-10 seem about as refined as a tank.

That frame's owner had brought the frame, built with Campagnolo components, to Highland Park Cyclery, a New Jersey shop in which I would later work. I would ride with him later.  I wasn't impressed with his riding (You might say I was a snot-nosed kid), but I liked his taste, at least in bikes.

As it turned out, that frame was built by Bruce Gordon.  He was one of a group of builders, which included Mark Nobilette, who trained with Albert Eisentraut, possibly the first of the wave of American builders who would ply their craft in the 1970s.  Eisentraut would stop building frames, and leave the bike industry altogether, a few years after I saw that frame.  

Well, I have just learned that Bruce Gordon--who would go on to design and make racks as well as other parts and accessories for bikes--was found dead in his Petaluma (CA) home on Friday.

Bruce Gordon, 2010

While he gained renown for his touring and racing bikes, he also was building 29ers and "gravel bikes" before they were called 29ers and "gravel bikes."  He realized that some cyclists, particularly those accustomed to road bikes, wanted a bike that could be ridden on what the English call "rough stuff" but didn't want the width or weight of mountain bikes.  Also, such bikes are more versatile than mountain or road bikes.

Gordon stopped building frames a few years ago.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, building frames is hard on the body, and builders often quit after developing arthritis, carpal tunnel and other ailments.  Two years ago, he tried to sell his business.  A crowdfunding campaign was launched to buy his framebuilding shop and retail store.  Apparently, it didn't work:  Because of the large amounts of money needed to rent a space large enough for a shop, and for all of the other expenses (including inventory that may sell slowly), the bike business rarely proves lucrative.  Custom frame building is even less so:  It seems that those who don't retire from the trade for health reasons end up leaving it because, paradoxically, higher-end frames, bikes and parts have smaller markups, and sell more slowly, than mass-market stuff.

So, since he closed his shop, he had been selling his remaining inventory, equipment and intellectual property.

Although I never owned one of his frames, I will miss him, if for no other reason that he made what might have been the first unique bike I ever saw.

The Migratory Patterns Of North American Cyclists?

When I was working at Highland Park Cyclery, a customer said he was going to start pedaling from New Jersey in October and arrive in Florida--where he had family--around Thanksgiving.   After that, he said, he would spend the winter there and start pedaling north in April.

I don't know whether he actually followed through with his plan.  And I hadn't thought of him in a long time, until I saw this:

Is the bear pedaling to the place where he or she will hibernate this winter?

What A Man Grows

In yesterday's post, I decried the sexism and lack of artistry displayed by Allan Abbott in building a bicycle that's supposed to look like a nude woman.

So...how am I going to follow it up?  With a post about one of the most andro-centric topics imaginable.  Why?  Well, for one thing, as one of the few (if not the only) male-to-female transsexual bike bloggers, I am one of the few people in this world who can get away with such a thing.

But, dear readers, please indulge me.  I'm not writing this post to be politically incorrect or contrarian, although I rarely shy away from being either.  Rather, I saw a cartoon and photo on the topic that was purely and simply humorous.

The subject?  Beards.  Yes, facial hair in which some men take pride.  According to the photo, the longer a male cyclist's beard, the greater his bike knowledge.

From Imagur. com

There might actually be some truth to the bike knowledge-to-beard ratio.  The photo at the end of it confirms what you know about Sheldon Brown if you ever looked at his webpages:  The man was a Library of Congress, a Biblitheque Nationale of cycling knowledge.  And Frank Chrinko III, the proprietor of Highland Park (NJ) Cyclery--where I worked--knew more about bikes than anyone in his twenties or thirties should.  During the time I worked for him, his beard grew from "Rides and has built a bike from old parts" to "Wizard" length. 

Me?  I grew a beard in those days, too.  Mine, though, never got longer than "Rides" length.  I didn't let it. 

Christo, Bike Burritos and a Peugeot P8

By now, you've seen the Bike Burritos I attach to Arielle and Tosca when I don't need a larger bag.

Now I'm going to ask a question you'd probably never ask: What might a bike look like if it were finished to match my Burritos?

Well, it's not an exact match, but you get the idea.  I saw the bike parked in Tribeca, near the home of the Film Festival named for the neighborhood.

If you look closely, you realize the bike wasn't painted in that pattern:

The "finish" seems to be some kind of contact- or wall-paper wrapped around the frame tubes.

From the unwrapped parts of the bike, I guessed that it's a Peugeot P8 from around 1983.  I feel confident in saying that because I assembled dozens of them while working at Highland Park Cyclery.

Now I know what one of those bikes might have looked like if the creator of the Bike Burrito and Christo had collaborated!

Workin' It

Some bikes look right only when they've got half of their paint missing and look beat right down to their inner tubes.

Well, all right, I didn't see the inner tubes on this one.  But I imagine that they have, if nothing else, the feel and scent of a pair of flip-flops swished and slogged through curbside puddles during a summer rainstorm.

But, really, can you imagine this bike--from Worksman Cycles--new?  The paint job may have been rather attractive, if in a utilitarian sort of way.  Somehow, though, it wouldn't have looked right.

I must say that in my more than three decades of cycling, I've seen only one "virgin" Worksman.  One shop in which I worked was an official Worksman dealer.  Highland Park Cyclery did a brisk business inside a ramshackle building (which was torn down after HPC moved to fancier digs) at the foot of a commercial strip across the river from the college (Rutgers) I attended as an undergraduate.  Some of the stores and restaurants offered deliveries, some of which they made on bikes.  Those shops and restaurants already had their delivery bikes--Worksmans, mostly--before I started working at HPC.

So it was something of a surprise--to me, anyway--when I found myself assembling a brand-new Worksman.  I didn't mind that:  Although it wasn't a bike I'd've bought for myself, it was easy to work on.  Plus, one could not deny that it was suited about as well as any product could be to its purpose.

What surprised me, though, was that it wasn't a business that bought one.  Rather, he was--as I recall--a married middle-aged man who ran a "consulting business" from his home.  He never consulted me about what his business consulted on, but he seemed prosperous and his family harmonious.  

He said he'd wanted his Worksman to use as his "human powered station wagon."  Later, I saw him hauling groceries, building supplies, books, and even furniture on it.  Another thing I find interesting, in retrospect, was that he was looking to become less dependent on his car (which he sold not long after buying the Worksman) at a time when gasoline prices were falling, at least relative to what they were in the days around the Iran Hostage Crisis.

Although I saw that man on his Worksman nearly every day, it didn't seem to wear much.  Granted, Highland Park wasn't as harsh an environment as New York or other urban zones for a bike.  Plus, I'm sure he didn't subject it to the same kind of abuse as most delivery people did to theirs. 


Apparently, in spite of the fact that the bikes never seem to die, there's enough of a market for new ones that the company is thriving, and did even during the leanest of times in the American bike market, and before the current vogue for "cruisers".  I guess that disproves the notion that if a product is so well-made that it never needs replacement, the company making it will lose sales and stop making it, or even go out of business.  (Some old-timers claim that was the story of Weinmann concave rims and Sun Tour V-GT derailleurs.) In any event, the bikes are being made in the Ozone Park area of Queens, NY, about seven miles from my apartment and just off the route of a few of my regular rides. 

Afterword:  I was looking up Highland Park Cyclery.  Apparently, they've moved up the road into neighboring Edison and have renamed themselves Joyful Cycles, in a reference to 1 Thessolonians 5:16-18.  Ironically, Frank, who owned HPC while I worked there, and his wife Wendy were about as antithetical to religious fundamentalism as any two people could be!