Photo tour: A Walk through the number one bike shop in the number one bike town in the US of A.
Quite possibly the best bike shop on planet earth, U Bikes has received every bike dollar me and my staff and friends and ex-girlfriends have spent in the last 10 years. Why? They don’t advertise, they don’t buy my love (though it is for sale). They walk their…er, bike their talk. They’re craftsmen of the bicycle, the
and they’ve always supported me and elephant back with amazing, quick service, great, patient advice and great deals. But most importantly, they love the bicycle. They’re not in the bike business: this is their spiritual path, I’m telling you, their craft; it’s just what they do. U Bikes has been around forever, and they’re a great part of the reason Boulder has such a strong bike culture (we’re consistently named number one bike-friendly small city in entire country, though if you ask me that award should wait until there’s a bike path on every major thoroughfare, would be a helluvalot less car/bike accidents). And U Bikes is, in some way, probably the bike business inspiration—the reason there’s so many other great racing and mountain biking and ordinary bike shops in a town with almost as many successful bike shops as yoga studios or cafes.
The other day, I was in to get something small fixed (for free, since I bought my Masi there), and my ladypal was getting her basket fixed—by Our Founder Doug Emerson himself, who happened to be in. Waiting while Dough battled the recalitrant bike basket, I wandered about the store, with the help of an employee or two (they’re everywhere, Doug must employ half the young men and women in Boulder), snapping poorly lit, flashless, oft shaky iPhotos. While these photos aren’t worthy of their subject, they’ll give you a hint. Check it out yourself if you’re in town—it’s a collection that reflects a life in bikes. Wooden bikes. Kerosene lamps. Skirt guards. Posters the size of Shaquille O’Neal. Race bikes, that’ve been in the races. An electric bike from back-in-the-day. Pins from old-timey bike conventions.
So, without further…here’s a photo tour of founder Doug’s unbelieveable, should-be-a-internationally-renowned-bicycle-museum-based-in-Boulder-soon bicycle collection. I literally captured about 1/5th of what he’s got in there—I didn’t even begin to capture the paraphernalia, jerseys, posters, pins, and bicycles themselves.
Click the photos to see ’em big:
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- Waiting for my friend’s bike to get fixed, I took one picture, innocently enough.
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- Suddenly, I saw amazing crazy bikes hanging from the ceilings, everywhere.
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- Gorgeous, old timey bikes with wooden tire frames and strange lamps and brakes and cork handles.
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- The University Bicycles logo, as classic as Coca Cola’s to my mind.
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- ‘Effin A. They don’t build ’em like they used to, ‘specially now that most bikes are built in Asian sweatshops.
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- When that seat broke, as it must’ve eventually, that musta hurt.
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- The details on the old bikes are full of what my parents’ Buddhist teacher called ‘yun.’
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- Bike helmet!
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- Wow.
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- One of the few decent photos I was able to capture with my poor, overworked iPhone.
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- There’s thousands of photos on the wall, bike posters, cereal boxes…many of them signed to Dough & Co. from famous riders.
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- Our Founder.
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- Ka-lassic.
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- You can buy ones like this on etsy.com.
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- A new fancy bike all the boys declared was ‘my new bike!’ I said, “I’m not cool enough.”
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- Notice: no chain.
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- Belt drive! A beeyatch to fix if it breaks, tho. And no gears?
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- It’s a modern place, too, with TV showing races & crazy/stupid mountain bikers getting hurt, 1000s of new bikes…
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- Tons of these around. Bikes used to have to get licensed, some automotive types want us to get licensed again. As if we were the problem. Lemme tell you, when you’re one >smack< away from death, you're riding carefully 24/7 even if riding aggressively.
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- Bikes for kids…
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- Upside-down bikes hanging like bats everywhere…
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- Bike trailers…
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- Bikes for SUV-driving sorority girls…
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- Awesome commuter bikes for folks who ride every day…
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- My Masi.
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- The Bianchi Milano, Masi, Gary Fisher Simple City…a few of the best commuter bikes…
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- The famous old electric bike.
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- An old ad for the “Whizzer.”
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- I remember these races. I remember seeing one of these posters when I was a child, with my mom, going to a restaurant called the Harvest.
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- This poster is huge and…
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- …odd. Notice how the baby’s strapped in.
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- Old pins. Impossible to photograph well with iPhone. I should send one of my real photographers in there; they’d never come out.
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- Almost every pin is its own work of art.
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- Awesome sign outside.
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- Bikes for rent for les turistas.
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- University Bicycles.
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- Boulder. Number one bike-friendly town in the US.
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