The proper LBS... like they used to be

[MontyVeda]

A load of photos appeared on the local FB group recently...

This was my nearest LBS as I remember it... the bottom Smalley's

bicycles and prams... what a combination

This is a very old photo of the same shop...

...when they had apostrophes

Smalley's was a little local chain. They also had a shop at the top of town:

with a proper shop keeper...

...who'd spend ages rummaging through those shelves of bits and bobs trying to find the cotter pins.

It's now a branch of Leisure Lakes.

And this is their Morecambe shop.

with another proper shop keeper... although he could have done a better job fitting the mudguard on that little trike.

I wonder what year that was taken?

It amazes me that the bottom Smalley's (1st photo) is still going as a Smalley's, and the Morecambe shop (no longer a Smalley's) still sells bikes

 

[a.twiddler]

A real blast from the past! So many small towns, even large villages, had at least one shop like that. (Almost a cliche -bikes and prams). To walk into a real bike shop with its faintly musty shelves of parts in cardboard boxes and new-bike rubbery tyre smells, presided over by someone in a stained shop coat with an encyclopaedic knowledge of obscure parts and how to fit them. I felt a real pang of nostalgia looking at those photos.

 

[Dogtrousers]

When I was a callow youth I'd go into a bike shop and the grumpy old man behind the counter would get impatient with me because I didn't understand what I was asking for and clearly didn't have a clue.

Now I go into a bike shop and it's the other way round.

 

[MichaelW2]

We still have one like that in Norwich, Freemans. Loads of new old stock bits and bobs on the shelf. I go there for my half-links.

 

[raleighnut]

This guy builds all my wheels

View: https://youtu.be/I56m7KF7Erc

 

[TissoT]

There is a shop similar to the above in Stranraer still in business.

I called in for a tyre after mine had split whilst riding in the west coast.
The shop was a shrine to the 60/70/80s

 

[Electric_Andy]

I haven't got a photo but there was a chap in my home town who had a little place in the high street. There were 3 or 4 mounds of bicycles about 6 feet high. As you walked in to the shed there were bike parts stuffed into every available space. He didn't sell new bikes, and last time I went in there he told us that he "didn't do new stuff like suspension or disc brakes". You tell him what size and style of bike you wanted, and he'd build it for you, usually for £80 - £100. My mum and dad both got bikes from there. He was quite eccentric and it was impossible to go in there for less than 30 minutes because he'd talk the hind leg off a donkey.

 

[Sallar55]

Wheelcraft any rim any hub you want. And coffee as long as its full strength.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

SLightly different but when I used to race sailing dinghies there was a shop I used to frequent that was like this
Been there ages and stocked pretty much anything a sailing dinghy or windsurfer would need

place was full of 'stuff' - always made think that if you wandered deep enough into it you would end up in L-Space from DiscWorld

At some point they had run out of display space for some stuff and had started nailing stuff to the ceiling - literally!


Local bike shop here os great - but the bits and pieces are in teh back and you can;t ferret around in them - or even see them

 

[Zanelad]

Baker's Cycles and Toy shop in Aylesbury. It was like stepping back in time. Much missed.

 

[Slick]

Wheelcraft any rim any hub you want. And coffee as long as its full strength.

View attachment 662355

I have 2 sets from Big Al, best thing I've ever bought.

Wouldn't touch the coffee though..

 

[Jameshow]

Cannot beat a good old fashioned bike shop, car parts factors or ironmonger!!

Few and far behind.

Re cars there was one in Penn - 171 Penn rd Penn bucks in the side of owners house.

Dad had Viva's and rover p6 at the time - had all the parts he needed!

 

[ren531]

I don't have any photos, I wish I did, but in my childhood in Preesall near Preston Lancs we all went to Charlie Mellings, just an old shed were he refurbished old bike's and It was the nearest I got to a new bike in the seventies and it felt like you were getting a new one with its new coat of paint.

 

[geocycle]

I remember ‘upper Smalley‘s‘ as Alan Dent or Lancaster Cycles before it became leisure lakes. It reminded me of Tony Boswell’s in York where I got my first proper bike from!

 

[Time Waster]

So Smalley's became three bike shops then? Smalley's, leisure lakes and is the morecambe one oggy's or Bay cycles or west end cycles? If the latter I heard they shut after getting a rap on the knuckles for selling stolen bikes!

Wasn't there cycles 2000 across and round the one way system from leisure lakes is now? Just before you got to the now closed down Waterstones.