Since were are reminiscing about old bike shops, does any one remember Quigleys in Manville, NJ? I use to work in Bridgewater and visited the shop many times. There are many things I will remember the rest of my life from that shop. One being that when you went in the front door there were bikes piled up from floor to damn near the ceiling. These were all repairs that were never picked up over the years and old man Quigley would not sell nor allow you to touch them. I saw repair tags from 1957 on some that I could glance at.
The next thing is that although he was already pretty old when I met him he still found time to teach me how to rebuild an old Bendix hub. I came in his shop one day with a pile of parts that I could not figure out how to get them back together. Rather than take them, give me a repair ticket, do the work and charge for it. He sat me down right there on the spot and guided me through the process on my own. I never forgot how to do one since then.
He was a Schwinn franchise and I still remember him taking me in the back of his shop and showing me his beat up, daily rider, Schwinn Paramount track bike that he had since put a freewheel on because of his advanced years. He frequently rode this bike from his shop in Manville to the Schwinn warehouse which was at that time in Jamesburgh. Quite a haul for anyone let along a 70+ year old guy. He had parts, bikes and things so piled up that it was hard to make out exactly what it all was. I was not into road bikes back then but he had plenty of that stuff.
Sadly, he passed some years ago and the rumor had it that his family had most of the stuff piled into dumpsters and hauled away as scrap. Now I wish I could have been at the scrap yard when those trucks came in.
Ray Homiski
Elizabeth, NJ