Bike Shop Tales: Brands II

I thought all bike shops were like Advantage Cyclery in terms of brands carried, but I was very wrong about that!

One of the crazy things about the old shop was the various brands that were represented. In fact, there were so many, I can't even remember them all! Not like some shops where you have one to maybe five brands represented. Nope! Advantage Cyclery had literally at least a dozen brands in the shop. Really!

Here's a rundown of the ones that I can remember. It's a big list!

•  Mongoose
• Diamondback
• Raleigh
• Gary Fisher
• Specialized
• GT Bikes
• Marin
• Scott U.S.A.
• Barracuda
• Bridgestone
• Bianchi
• Bontrager
• Guerciotti
• Park Pre
• Muddy Fox
• KHS
• American
• Cinelli (mtb)
• (Some brand Riteway used to carry similar to Trek's Jazz line, can't remember the name)
• Dyno
• Miyata

Told ya it was a big list! Now not all these were in the shop all at the same time. Advantage could be aged by the brands that came out of the shop. The early Advantage years, before I worked there, were marked by Park Pre, American, Bridgestone, and even earlier by Muddy Fox, KHS, and Miyata. While I worked there we had the GT, Mongoose, Gary Fisher, Bianchi, and Diamondback brands fully represented and supplemented by Scott, Raleigh, and Barracuda. Yeah........we had a lot of bikes!

Not only that, but Tom, the owner, had a penchant for framesets. So we would have odd ball frame sets hanging on the wall all the time. Orbit was one of the frame sets we had with a wild pink and purple paint job in two sizes. We had Alan, Colnago, Guerciotti, DeBernardi, and other roadie frame sets hanging from the wall all the time. I wasn't much of a roadie, but this was a cool aspect of working there.

Then there were the accessories. Tons of stuff from all sorts of brands were hanging from the walls there for sale. Pumps, saddles, grips, bar ends, and tires of all sorts and sizes. Water bottles, water bottle cages, and all sorts of gadgets were too numerous to mention. You know, I can't remember ever doing an inventory count while I worked there. It would have taken a decade I think!

Next Week: Back In The Shop Area........