Re: [CR]Time Tunnel Peugeot and old bike shops disappear...

(Example: Racing:Wayne Stetina)

Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 19:18:15 -0400
From: "Warren & Elizabeth" <warbetty@sympatico.ca>
To: kohl57@starpower.net
Subject: Re: [CR]Time Tunnel Peugeot and old bike shops disappear...
References: <293580-220045117155343622@M2W054.mail2web.com>
In-Reply-To: <293580-220045117155343622@M2W054.mail2web.com>
cc: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org

Interesting sidebar to this bike...I had shook hands with the shop owner to purchase this bike. One month later the windows were boarded up and he was gone.

I bought many old parts from "Mathew". He was an elderly Japanese-Canadian detainee (prisoner) in Vancouver at the end of WWII. He used to ride 6 day races with the infamous "Torchy Peden" who I believe was Canada's first world champ. He showed me pictures of them posing after a race. He told me that it was rumoured that the old hardwood indoor track still exists in the bowels of the mothballed Maple Leaf Garderns.

I will miss talking to Mathew. If I needed a french or italian cotter pin, he would have it. I would go in, shoot the breeze, ask him for the occasional obscure part for my current projects. You couldn't be greedy or rush him...he liked to let things come out of his stash "slower than molasses running uphill in wintertime." Part of the price of dealing with Mathew was a willingness to talk about the old glory days of cycling...he was a charming old curmudgeon. I told him I was retoring a 1937 CCM track bike. He told me to come back in a month and sure enough he sold me a correct NOS Major Taylor stem. I did get 2 NOS swallow saddles off him last year. He knew he was sitting on collectible old stock but money didn't motivate him. He and his brother worked everyday in familiar rituals and routines, filling out their lives. His shop was a vault of old bikes, history and paraphenalia. I know the "seller" who got some of the old stock, including the Peugeot. He offered it to me at the asking price but I thought better of it...not my size. I would have parted it out and that would be a sin.

Much of the rest of the old stock is bound for Cuba via ship container. There is a very active movement (up here) to provide Cubans with bikes. So be it. These vintage parts will show well beside all the US vintage cars down there.

Another old shop gone forever.

Warren Young Toronto

kohl57@starpower.net wrote:
> A lovely NOS 1971 Peugeot PKN-10 on eBay:
>
> http://ebay.com/<blah>
> &sspagename=STRK%3AMEBWA%3AIT&rd=1
>
> Peter Kohler
> Washington DC USA
>
>
>
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