Memories

As of late my inbox is filled with e-mails from my new bike buddy, Alison and I can tell you that is a good thing. I have already blogged about how she has brightened my life with renewed bike-love and today she did it again. Probably without realizing it.

She was telling me about how her Sutter (commuter bike) was being worked on at one of her local bike shops and she was going on about how the mechanics were excited to work on it.

Now realize that the Sutter (this link is to a Sutter I found online, not Ali's) isn't just any old beater commuter. She is clad in Campy Nouvo Record and I would have been proud to ride her back in the day.

I think I replied to the e-mail telling Ali something like "Duh! They work on boring cheap uninspiring bikes all day. Working on something cool and old school is a treat!"

That made me think of my days as bike mechanic and how the soul numbing stream of cheap ass POS bikes were punctuated by some savory morsels of bike nirvana. Not the bling-bling fancy-schmancy bikes but the old school ones.
The Old Masters:
Gueciotti
Ciocc
Battaglins
3Rensho
Zeus
Gitane
Botecchia
Pinarello
Colnago


All the ones we used to see in the bike magazines in our youth but never actually saw in real life. Some of them came and went long ago.

It didn't matter what we had to do to them, they just brightened out day with their old school jeweled articulations of Campy, Roto, Simplex, Modolo and Suntour.

I sat there composing my e-mail to Ali about the joys of working on the old bikes and my mind started to go back in time, beyond my starving student bike mechanic days, beyond my Navy days. I took an express trip to the early 80's and the beginning of my love affair with bikes and the start of my life as a cyclist.

This life started in the most unlikely of places: central Florida were cyclists were more rare than snow flakes. There were only a couple of shops that were notable. The one that has stuck in my mind the most was a place called University Bicycle Center. It was the coolest bike shop within 30 miles. The guy who ran it was named Manny and he was just cool.
One of his mechanics helped me set up my first set of Jr gears. Gear restrictions limited our gears to 92 inches. He found me a 51 tooth chainring and built me a 15-21 freewheel (remember, this is the 80's: 6 speeds was IT!!!). That 51-15 gave me a 91.8.

Besides all the helpful people there was the real thing that makes me wax nostalgic: the pro room.
Back in the is little room past all the schlock bikes, the balloon tires and the kids bikes with tassels was this full on sensory assault of bicycle goodness.


There was at least 12-15 high end bikes. cabinets of bike components and all the racing accessories. As with all good racing bikes, they had sewups and leather saddles and sometimes leather handlebar tape. In this room they stored all the sewup tires and the leather hairnets, good quality cycling shorts with real leather chamois, and all the other stuff that goes with that: saddle soap, chamois cream, sewup glue, campy bike grease.

I bought all my sewup tires from that room and my first leather "hairnet helmet". A really nice Cinelli one with yellow sides.

All those things along with the Campy grease and the aging natural rubber tires created this aroma that was almost overwhelming. They say that smell is the sense that has the strongest link with memory and I can attest to that.

I have this thing about leather and the way it smells and I really think this mystical pro room has something to do with it. It had burned itself into my consciousness in a most indelible way and I have yet to come across anything on par.

I have been working in and shopping in bike shops most of my life and bikes just don't smell like that anymore. They just don't.

The closest thing is the actual mechanics area. The smell of bike grease and WD40 hints at this, but not quite.

So, while I sat there and reminisced about this magical place, it brought a smile to my face as I just savored the memory.