Tom wrote: >Don't know what happen to them but there once was a shop in Smithton Illinois<
Yes, Mack's Bike Shop in Smithton. Mack MacConachie was a retired USAF guy who got the bike thing bad. Very active in USCF stuff, too. His daughter Tracy (Gateway East Freewheelers) won several medals in nationals and this was in a very competitive environment in the midwest as Beth Heiden and Sarah Doctor, two speedskaters from WI were also busy making their marks. In the '73-'78 years, I was a student at Washington U and would get to know Mack very well. Spent a lot of time down in Smithton and rode a lot of the local roads as well. Mack's shop was quite a destination for those in the know-- even for Chicagoans who would drive down "on a mission". When he bought, he really bought a lot of whatever item we are talking about. PX and PY-10s, including the real top end stuff with specially-prepped tied and soldered wheelsets for example. Beaucoup Raleighs. And then there were the Mondias. I remember a shipment of around 50 of them. I was upstairs the day of or the day after they arrived and were all unboxed. He remarked about his place in this little one horse town having maybe the most anywhere outside the importer or Switzerland. Boy, to see all of them in the full colors assortment with the "Big Daddy Ed Roth" (as Bicycling would say in a review) paint jobs was really something else! To our eyes today, those paint jobs are of course not what we expect from the likes of Ed Litton or any others on this list as our standards are so much higher, but they were (as were Tigras) quite unique for their day. I'd say the pinstriping was better than the lug work.
So, Tom, thanks for jarring those memories. Mack did have a closing the business sort of sale in the '80s as I remember. I had a friend call me in California and tell me what he thought I would like and he purchased a Huret Jubilee which I still have sitting on my shelf with the Mack's Bike Shop price sticker, among other goodies, sentimental and otherwise. What I really knew I wanted was still there in the building after the shop closed: the stained glass from above the entryway. There were 3 panels done in almost a churchlike design: Mack's, Bike, Shop. I put off going by so as to make an offer on it to the new owners of the building. Well procrastination did me in as the building was torn down before I arrived on the scene. What happened to the stained glass is anyone's guess.
The last I heard, Mack, who for years had talked of Costa Rica, was retired to Port Perry, a lake community of mostly retirees north of Cape Girardeau, MO in Perry County.
Ken Wehrenberg, Hermann, MO, but for now in Santa Barbara, CA