jjhabbs 

I worked at Action Cyclery from 82 to 89. I managed the store starting in 1984. This is a picture of me in 83 right after going to Schwinn SErvice school. Notice how shiny the spokes are on the Voyageur. After learning to build a wheel at Service school they sent me home with some 12 1/8 inch Chrome spokes and I built them right when I got home. That was the first of hundreds of wheels that I've built. At the time blingy BMX bikes that were all Chrome were in style and I wanted to do the same to my voyaguer..

big chainring 

Thats great stuff. Where was the shop? I worked at a store in Oak Park, IL in '83/84. We sold Miyata, Ross, Panasonic. We got in all the Ross mountain bikes and they just sat on the floor. 10-12 speeds were still the rage. And BMX. We sold Redline. I just remember all the junk bikes we'd get in for repair. And Saturday mornings doing flat repairs. 27" tires were so loose on the rims back then. No tools required. Yank the tire off, put in a new tube, inflate. $1.50 for the tube, $6 labor, $7.50 total.

jjhabbs 

The store was in Streamwood IL> What shop in Oak Park were you? Al Smith? Barnards? Licktons?

JJ

jjhabbs 

Check out the inventory on the walls! All these pics are form 84 or 85. Im the goofball with the arrow on my head.On the one pic you can see me with my voyageur with the Zipper Fairing! One of the first products from Zipp Designs.

Enjoy

jjhabbs 

Thought there would be some interest in the pics.. I guess not.

LOL

JJ

gaucho777 

The pics are great! It's fun to check out the inventory, and you sure seem to have enjoyed your work. Thanks for sharing.

bOsscO

Great old pics jjhabbs did you scan these in from prints?
I would have been in grade 4/5 which is around when i got my first bike; a 10-speed.

clubman 

I'd kill for the inventory in that shop now. 81 to 83 was my no-bike years...too busy with school and clubbing in Doc Martins. Cool snapshots.

nlerner

I graduated college in ‘82 and gave my brother back the Peugeot UO8 I had borrowed from him after riding it a lot that summer. Moved cross country that fall/winter and bought a Trek 412 from Palo Alto Bike Shop in Dec of that year. That was my only bike for at least the next four years until I started working at a bike shop and N+1 took hold.

Wildwood

After looking at the pics, I was enviously dumbfounded. What a fun job!


I had military, then a marriage too early, and a mortgage. Arrow thru helmet was more like me, when the nose wasn't grinding.

bikemig 

Cool pics. I worked in a shop in New Orleans in the 80s. We sold Peugeots, Treks, Miyatas.

clubman 

What was the 'Part' for 11.98? Lemme guess, a gel saddle cover?

76SLT 

Great pics of the good old days! Did you think back then, that you would ever have such a great collection some day?

big chainring 

Al Smiths.

nlerner

I thought you would guess a set of Mr. Tuffys! It was for a Silca pump with a Campy chuck, iirc. Still have that pump though it has duct tape holding together the cracked body, and I sold off that chuck on eBay many years ago.

jjhabbs 

No clue. At 26 years old I purchased two classics. My 73 orange World Voyageur and the 71 Green Supersport. I still have them both.

JJ

jjhabbs 

A few more shots.

canyoneagle

So cool to see these. Stirs some good memories of the era for me.
Here’s one of my old photos circa ‘82 on my first “real” bike - a Raleigh Super Course that I upgraded with Campy NR derailleurs and downtube shifters. This replaced my old U-08 mixte. I’m the skinny kid in yellow.

jjhabbs 

It's amazing back then. I wore a cycling cap most of the time. Even on Ragbrai I didn't use a helmet in 83.

JJ

LibertyFLS

So cool to see old pics. I wish I had more pics from back in the day, especially of some of my cars and bmx bikes. Now I have about 13k pics on my phone I will probably never look at them all

uncleivan 

Great pics! Here's a picture of me winter of 82/83. My guess is I'm looking at a colnago I couldn't afford.

Velo Mule

Great pictures jjhabbs . This brings back memories of when I worked in a Schwinn dealer. Your shop was much more dense that the shop that I worked in Really nice pictures. It is good to see that your shop was the starting point for a ride. Maps out going over the route. That's how to navigate back then. Handlebar bags with clear windows so that you can fold the map to show where you were. BMX bike on the concrete just inches from the door.

We had a bike rack out front. None of the kids with BMX bikes used it. They would either drop the bikes on the concrete or flip them over so they were perched on the handle bars on seat within just outside the sweep of the door. We had to keep telling them to move the bikes away from the front door so other people can get in and out.

Did all Schwinn dealers have that Casio cash register back then. We had the same one, I believe. Same glass case and peg board behind the counter too. That was probably common to all bike shops though.

Where did you keep that bikes that were in for repairs?

I wish I had pictures from back then.

jjhabbs 

When I left Action Cyclery I was the GT sales rep for Chicago. I saw many shops and you're right. They all had simular fixtures. That was a "Schwinn" thing. We jammed alot in once we got to 1984 or so. We had Schwinn, Trek, Miyata, Nishiki and Cannondale. Univega for a short time and Raleigh for a short time. That pissed off schwinn even though they were having a hard time supplying us with anything. They had their money problems. We had a back room that wasn't pictured. We kept a stacks there and the repairs. Believe it or not that little shop did $750 at it's height. That wasn't bad back then!

Here is a pic of the very first year they were in business. I purchased the world sport that was up on the wall on the right. That was 1980.

Velo Mule

Great pictures jjhabbs , especially seeing the first year compared to the mid '80's.

Nice shop the first year and thereafter. The dealer that I worked for got ambitious and bought private labeled bikes from Taiwan and sold them to shops throughout Long Island. I did deliveries of those bikes. It was good to see the range of bike shops. From the neat and organized to the shops with wooden, home made display racks with bikes and repairs packed in.

We didn't have too many problem getting bikes from Schwinn in 81, 82 or so, but we were selling more Panasonics, Fujis, Windsors, Mongooses, Redlines, GT's Torkers, Ross', Lotus' and our private label 10 speed bikes that went for $99 (maybe even $89) then. It is odd that people come to the shop because it is a Schwinn shop but they were buying non-Schwinn bikes.

I wish I had pictures from those days. Good for you for getting those pictures and even more for holding on to them and sharing them with us.

79pmooney

Takes me back. I raced and assembled bikes the years of '77 and '78, Cambridge, MA. First Lifecycle - Fuji distributor and Centurion. (I raced the Fuji Pro.) Next year - The Bicycle Exchange where a decade before I started this journey buying a UO-8.)

I've had several '83 and close frames as fix gear winter/rain/city commuters. Japanese Schwinn with relatively light tubing. (A blast. Got stolen.) Miyata 610 that despite several hard crashes went 27,000 miles through everything until I shortened the wheelbase 8". A Trek 4-something (came to me with no decals, just the headbadge). Still running great though I had to have the seatstay caps repaired. That was the heyday of workhorse horizontal dropout steel sport bikes with eyes and room for fenders. When the Japanese had so standardized bikes that crash your ride: pick up the next used frame, swap all the parts over and done.

Thanks for bumping.

Ben