Greetings from Iowa

[rickpaulos]

Hi all, I worked in a bike shop starting in 1972 and moved on to my career job in 1984. 12 fun years of riding, racing, going to college. The bike shop sold over 32 brands of bikes including Cannondale when they first started making bikes. Few know now that Cannondale was in business for many years before selling touring packs, handle bar bags, padlocks, kid trailers, tents, clothing and so on. One of my job assignments was assembling the Bugger trailers. Ugh. Cannondale didn't do any pre-assembly. Just toss all the parts in a box. We had to finish drilling the holes in the frames as they were usually incompletely punched out. The seat and handle bar bags had to have the semi-rigid foam liners installed at the store. The store owner would buy tons of extra Cannondale products and trade with other dealers for inventory so I think the store was one of the largest Cannondale dealers. I bought the very first model of bicycle Cannondale sold. It bugged me I had to wait a few months as they only made 23" frames in their initial production. It was a touring model with no model designation. I tried to make it in to a racing bike right of the box but it was a lousy racing bike. I only used it for a few months until Cannondale shipped their first racing models. I haven't ridden that touring bike since ~1984. It's still hanging in the basement. Since I worked at a Cannondale dealer, employees got the 1/2 wholesale price for bikes. $85 for a brand new from Cannondale racing bike. Since I had another full campy race bike, I got the low end racing model from Cannondale and I put all my racing components on it (Campy Nuevo Record). I raced and rode that bike for perhaps 100,000 miles including over 20 years of Ragbrai. I still have that bike too. Still rides good although the parts have all been replaced with cheaper parts. I keep it for my brother or friends to ride when they come to Iowa to ride Ragbrai. I've owned few other Cannondale bikes. A screaming fast H300. (sold) A V3000 (sold) that just would not keep the rear wheel on the ground. I just got a F500 with a buggered headshok.

Rick

 

[black lightning 1987]

Thanks for the information about the early days. What shop did you work for? I bought two new Cannondales from On Two Wheels, the first in 1990. I wasn't in the area in the mid 80s but am wondering what shop carried 32 brands.

 

[rickpaulos]

World of Bikes in Davenport. Mainly a Raleigh (English) dealer but in the early 1970s bikes were selling so fast the shop would buy anything they could get their hands on. We did the brands count in 1982 or so. I worked there from 1972 to summer 1984 when It sold. It was torched within a year.

On Two Wheels was started by 4 guys (Bradley, Fry, Verstrate, McCullum). Bradley bought them all out out over time. Closed the Moline store. The Davenport location is a "Trek Store" now.

Rick

 

[black lightning 1987]

I was in Columbus in the mid 80s, after a job in NJ and school in Champaign. Don't recall WoB in Davenport but I think there is still a store in IA City. I knew Steve and Errol well and Jeff a bit, but don't remember Fry.

 

[rickpaulos]

WOB LTD in Davenport was started by a stoner and a chiro prof (the money) in 1968 or so. "LTD" was more British to suit the Raleigh bikes and the Raleigh Pro Shop designation. The owners went all in on high end stuff including sponsoring race teams and selling Masi, Colnago, Atala, Maserati, Proteus, Witcomb, etc. We got tailored hand made jersies from Columbia (the country). Later they had TET on them when they moved Teesdale on site to make and sell custom bike frames. The chiro prof sold his share. The remaining owner opened the wob in Iowa City (his alma mater town). After driving the 60 miles each way a few hundred times, he came to his senses and sold the Iowa City store to an employee. About 1980 he sold WOB sold to a junior parent (drug dealer) (okay, hospital drugs) and went to Palmer to become a cash cow himself. The new owner revamped the team to a large junior team while his son raced. The owner started stores in Moline and Bettendorf. We'd spend more time on the phone calling the other stores to check inventory and telling customers were to go or "we'll have it here in a couple days". Multi stores is no way to run any business. The best reason to have a store in Moline was to get in state trucking rates. Far cheaper to get bikes shipped from Chicago to Moline that it was to Davenport and have to pay regulated interstate rates. The other stores were closed soon enough. He sold it in 1984 to a loser and that was the end of that. The fire finished it off. Just 16 years in all of ownership by non-business oriented people.

When the wob in Iowa City sold to an employee, the new ower moved it to cheaper digs and renamed it "International WOB" to distingquish it from the Davenport WOB LTD. He got a money investor and grew it from there and moved to the current building. The local nickname was World of Units due the odd language used by the money. Sold again about 12 years ago. Still going well despite the numerous competing stores including a Sheels box store.

I think Fry was the start up money at o2w. A racer parent. Spent the big money to get his wife's daughter in to racing.

 

[black lightning 1987]

By "on site" do you mean Tom T built frames at the shop?

 

[rickpaulos]

yes. Wob had a second building in the back alley where they set up Teesdale with a certified paint booth ($$$$) and work area. There rest was for storage of boxed bikes and a couple of assembly stations. I think the building was originally an 8 or 10 car garage for a nearby appt building that got remodeled in to 1 large room with just 1 walk in door and one car sized door. It got broken in to one time despite all the alarms and warning signs. They grabbed the first two bikes, a new entry level 10 speed and a customers bike in for repair. The next 10 they didn't touch were the race team bikes. The police on site caught the guys 2 hours later as they rode by at 3am without lights. The police kept the 2 bikes as evidence until the trial was over like 1 year later so the shop owner gave the repair-bike customer another bike. I worked in that building some of the time. One night, just 2 days before we left to go on ragbrai (3 or 4 or 5 or 6?), Tom built himself a bike. He went on ragbrai with us on his new unpainted, unfiled, and uncleaned frame. Still had all the flux from brazing on it. When the shop sold in 1980, he relocated to West Branch Iowa with his main squeeze, one of my high school class mates and they had 5 boys.

 

[black lightning 1987]

Good to know that local history. Friend had one of Tom's road frames but he's hard on frames and eventually cracked it. I look around for them occasionally but seem to come across more track frames than anything I'd be likely to ride. Did TT build with aluminum? There's a Yokota tandem on ebay that the seller claims is US made.

 

[rickpaulos]

Yeah, he did a few aluminum MTB bikes one year. He also built some Scandium racing frames that got some great reviews by local racers on them. Scandium is an aluminum alloy of some sort that was all the rage for a couple of years. Tom would build any design. Give the customer what they wanted. He did small batch building for an unknown number of companies including prototypes. Barracuda, Gary Fisher, North Wood, Quintanna Roo, Kona, etc. Most have his t.e.t. initials on the bb. Some were no good. For example the Brave Warriors with elevated chain stays and wild paint job. His wife did many of the paint jobs. The frame wasn't properly triangulated so those often broke. Kinda like many full suspension bikes from many makers. He built a batch for some (for my brother included) who wanted "the stiffest bike you can make". The result were pretty unpleasing riding race frames. Super short wheel base with 6" tangs welded to the lugs to stiffen up the forks and stays. He built a bunch of really nice tandems to order. I have the last bike he built (for my mother). She rides Ragbrai on it and it gets recognized all the time. People are surprised to see an 88 year old on a ladies TET.

 

[black lightning 1987]

I'll have to ask the tandem owner about the initials. I bought a Yokota Half Dome on ebay a few years ago thinking it might be one of the ones he built but it doesn't have the initials, so I always assumed Asian manufacture. Still trying to pin down what years Tom built the Half Dome. I'm guessing mid to late 80s. I'd think people would be surprised to see an 88 year old on any sort of bike. Great that she is still riding. You will have to ask her if she ever knew Art Boelens. He was riding well into his 80s and did lots of organized rides including RAGBRAI. I only rode with him once, met him on the road not far from his Annawan farm. He was on a Cannondale. Hope one of the family still has it, will have to ask.