Interesting how cycle shops tend to "cluster"... M Street in Georget own (where I've lived for most of my 48 years) was "it" in Washington with Bicycle Pro Shop (they started in 1957, the year I was born and a year before we moved to Washington), Georgetown Cycle Sport practically next door and both near the old Capital Transit street car barn and my family's
preferred shop, Tow Path Cycles at 28th & M near where the Four Seasons Hotel is now. And there was that newcomer, Big Wheel Bikes, that set up shop at about 32nd & M in the early '70s. Not much has changed as Revolution Cycles are approx. where Georgetown Cycle Sport was and Bicyc le Pro Shop and Big Wheel Bikes still at their original stands. Only Tow Pa th has sadly vanished... they moved to the edges of Old Town Alexandria in the mid 80s and closed about 10 years ago. Actually, bike shops are the only
remaining vestige of the old Georgetown when it filled with useful shops selling stuff we residents needed instead of $125 A&F sweatshirts, cheap gold and ice cream cones. And cycling to these shops on the old cobblestones and street car tracks was half the fun! If your bike wasn't broke when you set off, it was by the time you got there.
I loved hanging around these places when I was old enough to know what I wanted but couldn't afford. Saving up the $25 to buy a Brooks saddle was
sufficiently taxing! These shops all smelled wonderfully... and even the new shops still smell the same, that mixture of new rubber, lubricants and
fresh paint. But I must say I go into bike shops today and honestly have n't a clue as to what all this stuff is or does. Diamond frames and round wheels are the only reassuring and familiar bits.
Peter Kohler Washington DC USA
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