Re: [CR]The NYC Bike Shop Scene in early 70s and the Death of My Old F riend Francisco

I would very much like to know when the article on NYC bike shops was written. It has me confused about a couple of things. While I was enthusiastically riding all over Manhattan in 1973, I did not start working in shops until early 1975. The shop I worked in was called 14th Street Bicycles. It was on the corner of 14th Street and 1st Avenue. Everyone knew it because of the huge bicycle graphic painted on the brick wall above the shop. Was this a later incarnation of Gene's 14th Street Discount Bicycles? When I worked there it was owned by Denco Distributors in Queens. Denco was owned by Bob Denison and his brother Jim. They owned 5 shops, 3 in Manhattan and 2 in Queens. Bob was not a cycling enthusiast, he was a businessman, and typically did not hire "bike nuts". I was one of the exceptions. The Denco shops catered to the entry level cyclists. We had some PX-10's and high end Lejeunes (5F???). But I mostly sold UO-8's, and that was when I could move the customer up from the $99.00 special he came in to buy as a result of the newspaper advertising. Denco put their name on bikes they mass purchased in various parts of Asia. I remember selling bikes with the Metro name as well as Sebrings. They also bought large lots of various French bikes, I remember Jeunets and St. Etiennes among others. Lest I give the wrong impression, I enjoyed working for Bob and his brother. Bob was possibly the best employer I ever had, extremely fair and appreciative.

But the best part of working at 14th Street was the quiet man working as head mechanic in the little back room. Francisco Cuevas toiled away all day, truing wheels, doing tune ups, all the usual mundane tasks. He spoke almost no English, and I liked him immediately. Then I noticed the occasional racer type coming in on exotic looking bikes with no names on them, who all went to the back room to talk to Francisco. That's when I found out that he was building frames in his spare time. I don't think that Bob D. entirely approved, but he allowed Francisco this liberty. After that, I spent a lot more time at the shop after closing time. As I slowly learned Spanish, Francisco told me about his years in Argentina. He said he owned a bike factory and built over 17,000 frames while he was there. He apparently went to Argentina from his original home in Barcelona as a result of political problems related to Franco. He had two sons, Paco and Andres, who also worked in Denco shops, one on the upper East side and one in Rego Park. I had Francisco build me a frame and even got to do some of the file work on it. It is numbered 026.

Because I sold a heck of a lot of bikes, Bob moved me up to 96th Street Bikes where I managed the shop. I spent the next year or so building up my new frame as I could afford the parts. I would visit Francisco from time to time but lost touch when I left to ride the Cuevas across the US in 1977. I am not surprised that he stopped working for Denco, as there always seemed to be a certain amount of tension there. I was not aware that he was working in a small place in Queens in the early 80's, I had heard he worked for Paris Sport for a while. I am sad to hear that he has passed away, but he seems to have lived a long life, filled with the love of cycling. Heck when I knew him he was already 60, or so he said. I can remember him pulling out his little set of Cinelli rollers and grinding away in the back room sweating like mad. I always thought to myself that I wanted to still be able to do that when I was 60. We'll see........still a few years to go.

I also remember Conrad's. My girlfriend bought her Fuji S-10-S at that shop. Also Toga bike shop was always a pleasure to visit. And I spent quite a bit of time on 11 Stone Street at the Zeus Distributorship with the manager, Jim Carragol.

Of course I have fond memories of speeding all over Manhattan on my various bikes, some spectacular crashes, getting tagged by cars, drafting buses and cursing out cabbies. On weekends I would ride up to Connecticut to see my folks or out to Shelter Island to my girlfriend's parents place. Great times, great friends, gone now but frequently remembered.

Greg Pitman Rancho Cucamonga, CA

"After a time, habituated to spending so many hours a day on my bike, I became less and less interested in my friends. My wheel had now become my one and only friend. I could rely on it, which is more than I could say about my buddies. It's too bad no one ever photographed me with my "friend". I would give anything now to know what we looked like."
                                              -from "My Best Friend" by Henry Miller