My friend and I went out this morning looking for a new bike for him. He was looking for a way off topic carbon composite- at any rate, we went into Martin's bike shop in Ephrata, PA.
Martin's parking lot is the turnaround point for one of my regular rides. I get a special sense of satisfaction when I ride my '73 Silver Mist Paramount there and back. Even if you don't make an appointment to see all the good stuff, you can still take a peek at the "mini-museum" downstairs (unless they've recently rearranged things for space reasons). I ride regularly in the area where a lot of Martin's customers live - many of them old order Mennonites. Somehow all those Schwinns seem at home amongst the buggies and horse-drawn farm machinery. For a lot of these folks, bikes are not a form of recreation, but a means of daily transportation and local commerce. I've ridden past more than one Sunday church service with a "parking lot" full of bikes that were shiny as a new penny when Gerry Ford was sworn in.
Ed Granger Lancaster, PA, USA Happy to take list members for a ride in a place where the 19th century is more in evidence then the 21st.
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