Hi All,
I think the Big Wheel was actually on South Holly, but near Denver proper, not too far from downtown. It was a neat old building and absolutely full of stuff that you wouldn't see anywhere else. The Denver Spoke was THE racer's shop then, but The Big Wheel was the old school shop that you couldn't just stop in for a tube or water bottle. You had to plan on being there a while. And a while longer if Jack felt like talking to you.
Jack's daughter, Yvonne, was the USCF (and all of its later identities) district rep or manager or whatever they called it. She was a decades-long presence in Colorado racing and well liked. Is she still involved?
As far as Jack naming names etc, I'll have to see if I still have the content kicking around, but in some ways, he foretold the future. A couple of examples that I do recall (and thinking to myself, 'no way...') were his claim that the MTB would ruin bike fit/ride/handling because road bikes would soon be sized in S,M,L,XL just like 'dem *&$%*&^ mowton bikes der!' And that it would be sold to us as better, lighter etc, but in reality it was just cheaper to build them that way, and as bikes become more commonly sourced from Asian factories, this would become the 'norm' and would be marketed to us all as good. He named the two major US bike companies at the time (still one and two now). He didn't mention Giant, who made (makes) a lot of those bikes and were the first to heavily market the 'compact' road frame, but they were still mainly a small brand then, even thought they were the largest manufacturer.
Another thing Jack saw coming, and those of you who are in bicycle retail will feel this, was that those large manufacturers would continue to pressure retail stores to become a one brand (one company) store, i.e. the Concept Store. As those companies bought up more and more smaller brands, they could offer 'choices' on the sales floor and require dealers to carry 'x' percentage of their product from that manufacturer or risk losing the product lines to a competitor. Jack did not like someone else telling him what to carry and how much of it to carry. I guess you could say that he was doing the same with his brand in his store, but it Was his store after all.
Sorry Dale if this is off topic. Wait, here's a reach back for classic content. I saw my one and only ever Cornelo frame at The Big Wheel and I thought it was the coolest bike (probably because it was at that shop and I had never seen one), and I still know very little about Cornelo. That thing was my size and the coolest shade of metallic green I had ever seen. And it was close to that major Italian brand with a similar name, but it wasn't! A plus in my book at the time...
Greg Overton
wondering where that bike is now
near Denver, Colorado