Re: [CR]Oldest Bicycle Shop (still around)

(Example: Framebuilders:Dario Pegoretti)

Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2005 22:50:03 -0400
From: <wilsonjw50@aol.com>
Subject: Re: [CR]Oldest Bicycle Shop (still around)
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org


tarik saleh <tsaleh@rocketmail.com> wrote: <snip>Hearns is definitely 100+ years old (1896), just around the corner from the hearns locksmith that it presumably started with. It is a nice little shop, they used to have a neat decade by decade schwinn bike display (the OT kind) on the walls... I find it unbelievable that they do not make more of the fact that they are nearly the oldest shop in the US, they are pretty small and low profile... Thanks Tarik, I started my work career at J.M.Hearn's in 1966. Mr. Hearn started the shop in 1896, moving from Baltimore. When I started there, he and his wife were coming to work every day (he in his 90's and she in her 80's) and he was still driving yet and still calling bicycles "wheels"! Primarily a Schwinn dealership but we sold a lot of other midrange bikes. Best memories are learning to braze and that occasional Paramount, World Voyageur, and Superior. The shop has been sold a couple of times since son Fred Hearn retired but I believe it's been going continuously for about 109 years now and in the same building since 1948. I just hope it's retained some of the old time shop feel I remember. John (a bike mechanic's soul in an engineer's body) Wilson Greensburg, PA