In a message dated 7/10/2001 11:12:01 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Nraschico@aol.com writes:
> was fortunate to go with my
> grandfather. It was fun to look back on those days and now realize that I
> have been in bicycle business 40+ years of my 49 years. I have all of the
> factory manuals from that era and before. It's great when one of my
> employees can't figure out how to work on the vintage bicycles and I can
> give
> them everything they need to know to make it work.
>
> John Alden
> North Rim Adventure Sports
> Chico, CA
> (Still a Schwinn Dealer & holding my breath they survive.)
>
>
Hi john
I was a grad of the school in'72 at sales East, Edison, NJ
I was sent as a spiff while a bikeguy wrenching my way towards this current
trench.
the food and hotel were great for a kid.
My boss went the next year and was one of the few failures ever
we scored near 100
Ther instructors were amaxing
Gery Fusz was a former prestodigitator (magician) and had a way of fanning a
whole side of spokes and plopping them into a hub shell in an instant
he could also hold an entire assemblage of stumbley archer parts in between
his fingers and magic them into the hub and axle in perfect order almost,
well, magically
Of (CR) interest: we spent several hours on repairing DelMondos We spent about an hour learning how to balance the springs, upper and lower, in the Campy GS boat anchor (on Sports Tourers and Paramounts) We even learned how to tighten up 'Simplex droop'
Stan Natanek and Frank Brilando were other icons of their day
Did you have thos one? "Do y'all carry Schwinn?" "sorry, it takes TWO people to carry a Schwinn"
After getting the job in the Schwinnshop (not total concept by any stretch) Things were different (at least when we were dealing in the showroom) "But Schwinns are heavy" "are you gonna RIDE it or CARRY it??"
My bast day was the day it was 105 in the back room, i was fed up assembling varsities and subirbans, and they gave me a rush job assemble The customer's name was 'Thisis Arz'
I went into the warehouse and noticed the strange box It had staples in the sudes at the seams, it had the labels taken off, and it felt empty
I popped it open and the black P13 for which I'd been waiting was smiling at me, it's chrome lugs twinkling like stars, it's jet black gloss deep enough for me to see my own grin. The sweet fragrance of the clement 50's already red-cemented onto the Mavic Monthlery's was calling me on a date It was my birthday and the timing was right Needless to say, it was the last assembly of that day I caught a little grief from one of the older guys "whew, you p[aid $40 for those brakes extra? Campy just made the world's nicest brakes and they went and made them a sidepull" May Karl Hendrickson, who did contribute to the world the Front Freewheeling system, but drank all his glory and body away. rest in centerpull heaven.
Larry Black