Kickstand Magazine » Kickstand Magazine

THIS IS WAR

Alexander — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 18:04:03 +0000

Captain Kevin Krebs with his new Worksman M2600 Cruiser

Helping the war effort, one ride at a time America’s oldest bicycle manufacturer teams up with Kickstand to send a Worksman cruiser to a J.A.G. officer in Iraq

When Ann Krebs first contacted Kickstand Magazine she had a simple request: did we have any connections “willing to donate a cruiser (does not have to be nice or even new)” to her husband, Captain Kevin Krebs, stationed at Camp Victory in Iraq?

Ann explained, “He would like to have a bike there to ride around. He said that the BX/PX (their goods store) sells them when they get them in every so often but they go like hot cakes. He said he just wants a simple one-speed bike…nothing fancy.”

Eager to help, we contacted our friends at Queens, NY-based Worksman Trading Corp. (aka Worksman Cycles) and asked them if they would be interested in lending a hand. The company was more than happy to oblige and they shipped a bicycle to Ann in Wyoming so she could send the cruiser, along with a care package, to Kevin.

“This is an exciting project. Rather than custom making a cruiser, we are supplying a standard issue Worksman…we really did not need to do much in the way of modifications, as the bike is super sturdy already. Believe me, it will impress,” said Worksman’s Wayne Sosin.

The cruiser, model M2600, is made in the USA and features a fully lugged and hand-brazed industrial frame, exclusive Worksman clincher steel wheels, and a Shimano coaster brake, among other durable components. Because the bicycle’s components are heavy duty, it should have no problem handling anything the Captain or Iraq can throw at it.

Founded in 1898 in New York City by Morris Worksman, a Russian immigrant, Worksman Cycles’ mission is to provide the finest, toughest, American-made bicycles and tricycles in the world. For more info on the company, visit worksmancycles.com.

Bicycles in his blood

Alexander — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 21:02:09 +0000

story by JAMES BURRUS

Howie Cohen is not a man on a mission. He is a man with a passion — for bicycles. Anything and everything bicycles. And he has, by any measure, been wildly successful in the bicycle business. But today, at 70 years old, instead of basking in the comfort of retirement, Howie the Bikeman is working seven days a week cataloging his life of bicycles one shower curtain, lighter, piece of vintage sheet music, drinking glass and set of cuff links at a time.

Looking back on and savoring a career rich in memories and relationships — a life spent buying, selling, fixing, painting and supplying two-wheeled machines the world over — Cohen is, in a sense, reliving his storied past with every storage box full of bicycle knickknacks he opens.

“I fall in love with every bicycle-related item I touch,” Cohen says as he lifts the lid on one of the hundreds of file boxes filled with bicycle mementos that fill his sizeable Lafayette, CO, basement to the ceiling. “It’s Christmas every day. When I touch something, I usually remember where and when I bought it and who I bought it from (or who gave it to me). It brings back warm memories.”

Given the life Cohen has lived, the changes he has seen and the revolution he sparked in the bicycle industry around the world, one would think he should write a book. But in a way, his ongoing effort of cataloging his collection – truly, a world-class museum in the making – on his Web site (howiebikeman.com) is just as good, if not better.

Start ’em young

Cohen’s passion for bicycles is tied closely to his father, Leo, who, during the depths of the Great Depression, was scratching out a living selling magazine subscriptions door-to-door in Minneapolis, MN. Before Howie was born in 1939, Leo was buying clunker bikes for $5 so his brother-in-law could fix them and re-sell them for $10.

Leo bought into his brother-in-law’s business. It grew and he sold back his interest in 1946. Leo bought a house trailer and moved Howie, his younger brother, Leo Jr., sister, Louise (aka Puss) and mother, RosaBelle, to Los Angeles. There Leo bought a bicycle store at 168 N. LaBrea Ave., named it Playrite Bicycle Supply Co. and an empire was born.

Gentle, well-spoken and enthusiastic, Howie Cohen relishes telling stories about his early days in the shop with his dad. It was under his tutelage that Howie not only fell in love with the two-wheeled machines, but learned all aspects of the bicycle business that he would grow to dominate.

“My brother and sister and I were brought up in that store,” Cohen said. “That’s all I knew. When I was eight, I was allowed to dust the bikes. At nine or 10 I could sweep the floor. When I was 11, I started working in the repair department and would fix flats and paint bikes. The last year of our retail business, I painted about 2,000 bikes.”

Along the way, Playrite was changed to West Coast Cycle Supply Co. (a.k.a. WCC) to reflect the switch from retail to wholesale. Leo died when Howie was 23, and his death struck Howie hard. He had finished school and was well on his way to making big waves in the bicycle business, but his mentor, friend and father was missed terribly, and is to this day.

In the early ’60s, business at WCC remained very much a family affair. As Cohen writes on his Web site, “The entire family assisted dealers who came in to purchase and pick up their orders; good service to customers was the top priority.”

Growing global

The wholesale business grew rapidly, thanks in no small part to Howie’s integrity, hard work and outside-the-box thinking.

“Howie was very much a visionary,” said Pete Mole, general manager for U.S. operations for Dahon California, the largest manufacturers of folding bicycles in the world and a long-time friend and colleague of Cohen’s. “He developed markets that were unheard of. He didn’t mind traveling all over the world to find products that he could market in the U.S.”

“He was the first to venture to Japan,” Mole said. “He saw a country that was able to move in the right direction and improve on their products and at a price that would kill off the Europeans.”

While others shrugged off Japanese products at the time as being poorly
made (they often were), Cohen was drawn to their manufacturing philosophy of Kaizen or “never-ending improvement” imported in the ’50s from U.S. industrialist Arthur Demming.

Cohen was among the first to forge deep and lasting personal and business relationships with what would become Japanese bicycle manufacturing royalty, including names like Shimano, SunTour, Kawamura, Taihei, Hatsune, Tsuyama, Kuwahara, Ishiwata and many others.

“He was an exclusive distributor for SunTour,” Mole said. “Wholesalers who wanted to use those brakes, shifters, pedals and things, had to go through him.”

Product placement pioneer

After selling West Coast Cycle Supply in 1976, Cohen launched Everything Bicycles and soon thereafter Kuwahara Cycle Co. asked Cohen to promote and market the Kuwahara brand the same way he did the Nishiki and Azuki brands. Kuwahara produced high-end BMX bikes that had become so popular that Universal Studios contacted Cohen and requested that he give them some two dozen Kuwahara BMX bikes for Steven Spielberg’s movie, “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.” (For the full story, go to kickstandmag.com). This represents one of Cohen’s crowning claims to fame (and not a little trickle-down boon in sales).

In 1981, Cohen had never heard of Steven Spielberg, but was asked by Steve Adler, a vice president at Universal Studios, if he would give the maker of the recently released “Raiders of the Lost Ark” two dozen bikes (many, which at the time, retailed for about $600 each).

Cohen recalls saying: “Mr. Adler, every time I’ve gone to the movies, which isn’t very often, I’ve bought a ticket. So I think the movie, if they want to use our bicycles, ought to buy our bicycles. To which Adler replied, ‘I don’t think you understand.’”

Long story short, Cohen delivered the bicycles and the movie was made. In the aftermath of the wildly popular movie, Cohen sold “thousands” of ET3003 Kuwahara bikes that retailed for $260 a pop.

“It happened pretty fast; faster than we could handle it,” Cohen said. “They’re going for $1,200 to $1,500 a bike now.”

In 1989, Cohen sold the Kuwahara name back to the Japanese factory that was making them and “retired.” In the years since, he has done consulting work for the likes of The Gary Fisher Bicycle Co., Avid and several others, but his true passion is in his boxes of “stuff.”

Today, Cohen’s full-time job is cataloging his vast collection of bicycle memorabilia – tens of thousands of items (see side bar) – that fill a mountain warehouse and would be unparalleled fodder for a world-class bicycle museum.

“There are many things. I’m sure there are thousands of things that I don’t have, but I don’t know of them,” Cohen said. “I can’t even catalog all the things I do have.”

But every day that passes, he gets closer and closer to finding out just what he does have. And thanks to his Web site, the world can share his love of bikes and all things bicycle. n

Dude, where’s my cruiser?

Alexander — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 20:55:19 +0000

TEST RIDE

Not many bikes get this much attention, good and bad. Our lawyers made us say this: “We are in no way condoning the use of marijuana” by promoting the Irie beach cruiser, nor is its manufacturer, America’s Bike Co.”
That said, we think you’ll have a whole lot of fun on this comfortable and colorful, three-toned cruiser with “oak” leaves painted on it. And it just happens to be the cruiser featured on Showtime’s hit sitcom “Weeds” this summer, so this bicycle has that ‘15 minutes of fame’ thing going for
it (we had the privilege of testing one of the eight used in the actual “Weeds” filming). Kind bud pedigree aside, this cruiser is just plain fun.

PROPS:

This is a statement cruiser as the Irie has the classic, sleek lines you’d expect of a great retro bicycle, not to mention it really stands out with its Rastafarian-inspired paint job.

SHLOPS:

The ride is a bit stiff so you’re going to feel every bump and pebble in the road. Basic upgrades to the base components wouldn’t hurt either (a quick-release seat post and a more durable stem would be worth the extra couple of bucks).

BOTTOM LINE:

A great ride if you want to get noticed, but realize that you’re buying into the affordable category, so durability may be an issue in aggressive skid contests.

THE SPECS

Sizes: Men’s 19”

Frame: Steel

Fork: Tensile steel

Seat: Padded Dual
Spring Saddle

Brakes: Coaster

Tires: Kenda 26”

Components:
Optional Fenders; $20 for the set, alloy crank and fenders, bullhorn style handlebars.

MSRP: $250

americasbikecompany.com

QUOTABLES

The Techie: “The kind of bike that gets noticed in the, ‘I like your bike so I’m going to take it’ kind of way, which actually happened.”

The Publisher: “Everybody’s got
something to say about it.”

The Random Rastafarian: “Nice
bike, mon” — (we swear we didn’t make
up this cliché).

The Literate One: “If it’s good enough
for ‘Weeds,’ it’s good enough for us.”

Seeing Eye Editor: “Don’t Bogart
that bike.”

Windy City Salsa

Alexander — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 20:48:05 +0000

story & photos by John Greenfield

Cruising in Chicago is a family affair for these riders

Salsa music blasts from a sound system trailer with a big Puerto Rican flag attached, pulled by a guy in a traditional straw hat on a classic yellow Schwinn cruiser. Behind him ride a hundred men, women and kids wearing matching red T-shirts, blue shorts and white sneakers, the colors of the flag.

Most of them are rocking vintage Schwinns with gleaming chrome fenders, white-wall balloon tires, gas tanks, and springer forks. Many are decked out with rear-view mirrors, air horns, fox tails and small U.S., Puerto Rican and Chicago flags. It’s the Chicago Cruisers bicycle club, pedaling downtown to the Puerto Rican Day Parade on a hot June morning.

The club gathers every other Sunday during the summer in Humboldt Park, Chicago’s Puerto Rican community, to show off their cycles and parade around the neighborhood or take excursions to the lakefront or the Loop.

“We have three goals,” says Luis Mercado, a mental health counselor who founded the club in 2000. “Ride beautiful bikes, build friendships and enjoy the sights of our wonderful city.”

“Schwinn cruisers are a cultural thing for Puerto Ricans,” explains Mercado. “It goes way back to when we were kids.” He says about half the towns on the island, a U.S. territory, have bike clubs. Similar clubs have formed in mainland cities such as New York and Cleveland, but Mercado says the Chicago Cruisers is the biggest.

Although most of the members are Puerto Rican, you don’t have to be a boricua to roll with this family-oriented club.

“Everyone is welcome as long as you have an old-fashioned bike,” says Mercado. “And as long as you are a good person – no gangbangers.”

Cigar smoke wafts in the air as the mass of riders makes its way southeast toward the Sears Tower. Motorists beep their horns in greeting and pedestrians do a double take, then smile and wave as hey see the huge group.

“Cruising is a good, healthy activity that keeps families together,” says Angel Barcero, a school custodian riding a chrome-framed Phantom. His son, Juan, currently serving in Iraq, used to ride with the club as well. “It would be nice if every family did this.”

The Cruisers arrive at the parade staging area on Columbus Drive and set up their bikes in a line along the curb so spectators can check them out. On a nearby float, musicians are playing Puerto Rican folk music on conga, guiro, guitar and cuatro, the eight-string lute that’s the national instrument.

Holt Ellis, standing near his candy-green Schwinn, says that although he’s African-American, not Puerto Rican, Luis Mercado still invited him to join the club when he spotted him riding around Humboldt Park.

“The Chicago Cruisers are most definitely welcoming to all races and nationalities,” he says.

Asked why the Schwinn cruiser resonates with Puerto Ricans, he says, “Latinos and African-Americans, we all came up poor. Cruisers are accessible because you can buy one second-hand or piece it together and customize it to make it your own. They’ve become a Latino icon.”

Borinquen Unidos, another, smaller Puerto Rican club that rides souped- up adult tricycles, has joined up with the Chicago Cruisers for the ride. Hanging out by his ride, Juan Rosado says he got into three-wheelers because they’re unique and they give teens something to do besides getting into trouble. “They’re also good for kids with disabilities who can’t ride regular bikes,” he says.

After the factory closed in 1982, lowrider bicycles eclipsed the Schwinn cruisers but Betzy says these timeless bikes are coming back into style with Latino youth. “There’s been so many fads and trends and phases, but the classic Schwinn cruiser still remains.”

Chicago Cruisers rides leave from Casa Puertorriquena, 1237 N. California Ave., every other Sunday, from mid-May to mid-September. Call Luis Mercado at 312-671-0654 for more info.

WHERE DID ALL THE CRUISERS GO?

Alexander — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 20:38:27 +0000

NEW ORLEANS

By Jacob Harkins •

How Katrina changed a cruiser culture

Mary Richardson didn’t know the scope of her photo project when she and her partner, Nicholas Costarides, began snapping pictures of the uniquely classic cruiser bicycles of New Orleans in late 2004.

Katrina hadn’t put things in perspective yet.

She thought the rusted chain guards, bells that took a little extra thumb pressure to make noise and the rest of the bicycles that were passed around like a round of Hurricanes on Bourbon Street made for striking art.

Each bicycle had a story to tell. “The bikes and the people are just really the same in that way; every time I looked at that bicycle I feel like I can see the person,” Richardson says.

Her book “New Orleans Bicycles” is filled with images of bicycles that had been riding around the Big Easy and dodging its enormous potholes for decades.

These cruisers had been part of numerous neighborhood parades, bar crawls (open containers are allowed in New Orleans) and commutes into the French Quarter for a shift at a bar.

What Richardson didn’t expect was that her book would become an obituary; the last, best witness to the oxidized Big Easy cruiser machines that would, only days later, be washed from the face of the earth forever.

Shortly after wrapping up the photo shoots late in the summer of 2005, Richardson moved to Atlanta with the job of editing the book looming, never suspecting that only a few days later a storm would change everything.

Hurricane Katrina blew through town, destroying levees, taking lives and leaving the port city under water. Amid the mass destruction that saw entire neighborhoods ripped up, an American cultural icon and its people were changed forever.

It also decimated an irreplaceable collection of vintage bicycles. Jeff Shyman, a local historian and owner of Confederacy of Cruisers bicycle tours, estimates that more than 60 percent of the city’s bicycles were washed away during the storm.

“I lost my job, my house, the cat—and, oh yeah, I lost my bike,” says Ian McNulty, a Midtown New Orleans resident. “(Katrina) reset a lot of things. For a lot of people, New Orleans culture started over again.”

McNulty had a half-dozen bicycles essentially drown after the storm. One bike, a chrome Sun cruiser, survived. He later spent many lonely nights cruising through his blacked out neighborhood on it, researching his book, “A Season of Night.”

“I lived here during a very creepy period,” he says. “There were no lights and no people around, just packs of dogs. I thought ‘shit, I am going to ride my bike around.’”

The sub, sub culture

New Orleans itself is old and imperfect. There is charm and eccentricity at every turn with French Quarter balconies slanting to the left, row homes tipping a few degrees to the right and even estates in million-dollar neighborhoods showing more than a few spots of chipped paint.

The pre-Katrina New Orleans bicycle culture was no different. It was never defined by anything more than eccentricity, and perhaps a reluctance to buy anything brand new. The style and character was unspoken and undefined. It just was what it was.”

“The bikes were a reflection of us,” says McNulty. “It’s like ‘this is an old bike, it’s cool, it has style, it’s cheap. It’s unique; it’s my own little piece of New Orleans.”

Decades of buying and trading hand-me-down bicycles created a stock of cruisers that had more personality than Richard Simmons.

“Each bike passed through so many people,” Shyman says. “If each person leaves an indent on it, you have something unique.”

While the Mardi Gras floats get most of the attention, locals will tell you they have more
fun at their occasional neighborhood parades. They‘d dress up just the same, and often turn their cruisers into floats that were the center of attention.

People were even known by their rust-caked bicycles. “I knew that’s the one always parked in front of this bar or that, that’s the delivery guy’s bike,” McNulty says.

They brought the wrong kind of bikes

Following the storm, countless nonprofits and do-gooders in general pitched in, sending money, clothes, dry goods and even bicycles down to the weather-torn city.

But most of the bicycles that got sent to New Orleans were road bikes, townies, mountain bikes. “They were hugely appreciated,” McNulty says, “but they weren’t the big fat cruisers we all loved so much.”

That’s not to say the bike culture is dead in New Orleans. It actually appears stronger than ever. It’s just different. It’s newer and more affluent looking.

New money has been pumped into the city with redevelopment projects popping up all over. Young professionals occupy neighborhoods formally the domain of a lower economic class, and a profusion of new bikes now roam the city that was once ruled by rusty classics.

“You can tell somebody who moved down here from another hip city up north,” Shyman says. “They are on road bikes these days—the roads are horrendous; nobody’s going far on a road bike. I still don’t see the point.”

But there is still hope for those who miss their beloved bikes. Taking advantage of New Orleans’ unbelievably flat streets and logical street grid, bikes are everywhere and more shops are carrying complete lines of cruisers, albeit new ones.

They just don’t have any rust on them. Yet. They haven’t been passed from person to person. Yet. But given time—the universal fix-all for disasters—that, too, will regain a level of normalcy. Luckily, one thing that hasn’t changed in New Orleans, and never will, is the weather.

“The flood destroyed a lot of bikes; the base of the culture was destroyed,” McNulty says. “But the spirit wasn’t broken. Now it’s more, newer bikes, but they are quickly getting weathered.”

What can do to help?

All three of these groups can use lots of support now that the excitement over Katrina has died down.

RUBARB (Rusted Up Beyond All Recognition Bikes)
they started as a volunteer community bike program right after Katrina, pulling bikes out of flood trash piles to fix up and get to struggling residents. rubarbike.org

Plan B a community bike program, they’ve been around since well before Katrina and were extremely busy right after Katrina gathering bike donations from other parts of the country to distribute to flood victims. bikeproject.org • 504-944-0366

Metro Bicycle Coalition This is the bicycle advocacy organization for the New Orleans region. mbcnola.org

Making them pretty

Alexander — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 20:28:57 +0000

story by JACK JOSTES

She’ll keep your motor runnin’

A florist by day, HotRod Jen is a cruiser-obsessed grease monkey at heart.

With a last name like Skidmore, it’s hard to imagine why an accomplished grease monkey, pinstriper and cruiser bicycle restoration wizard would want to hammer out a fitting nickname from Jennifer. But hey, if the moniker fits.

So on the paychecks at her day job as a florist, it’s Jennifer Skidmore. But to her fellow cruisers, gear heads and classic car and motorcycle fans, it’s HotRod Jen; the same HotRod Jen who leads the Sunday Rockabilly Ride through Lansdale, Pa., on her custom green 1949 Schwinn DX.

It’s the same daily ride she pedals around her nearby hometown of Bath. Most of her friends think she’s a little crazy to be pumping the heavy two-wheeler up hills normally considered the domain of roadies and mountain bikers. Hers, they say, is a bike that belongs on the pancake flat boardwalk of the Jersey Shore.

And it just so happens, that’s where her cruiser obsession started.

She found the classic Schwinn at a garage sale in New Jersey and took it with her when she moved into the Pennsylvania hills six years ago.

“I bought it for 15 bucks,” she says. “I threw it in the back of my Nova and took it home to work on it. It was so well balanced for being so old, and there weren’t any problems with it. I’ve been in love with cruisers ever since.”

The 24-year-old re-covered the seat, found a tank for it and plans to repaint the frame with a bomber theme—but she’s still in search of the right horn.

In addition to the DX, she’s also rebuilding several others: a ’50s vintage Monarch ladies’ cruiser, a ’54 men’s Shelby Flyer, a ’71 Fairlady Schwinn, a custom Schwinn lowrider, and a ‘53 Schwinn Holiday ladies’ 20-inch. She has an old Huffy that she uses for parts.

HotRod Jen’s mechanical prowess doesn’t end at two wheels. She single-handedly keeps her 1972 gas-guzzling, 4-speed Chevy Nova 350 purring. But her true artistic calling is pinstriping any vehicle she can put a brush on.

But whether it’s bicycles, cars, tattoos or art, HotRod Jen has had a passion for the style and culture of ’50s Americana since she was four years old.

“My dad used to take me to drag races when I was still in a stroller,” she says. “I remember seeing my first favorite car—a shiny black and red 1951 Mercury with flames—it’s still my favorite car.”

It was at the track that Jen fell especially hard for custom pinstripes and thus turned to the art of hand painting fine accent lines on hot rods, motorcycles and, naturally, cruiser bicycles.

She begins by taking pictures of cars and making pastel drawings of them. Today, with years of practice behind her, Hotrod Jen’s pinstripe lines have the flawless arc of a breaking wave.

And while her pinstripe prowess has earned her the kudos and respect of her (mostly male) peers whose rides she’s tricked out, Hotrod Jen likes to sport an array of accents of her own.

“I have one leg dedicated to fellow pinstripes and hot rod icons Von Dutch, Ed Roth, Mr. Horsepower and Clay Smith Cams,” she says. “I’ve got flames that go up my leg. At the top, there’s a flying eyeball and pistons for Von Dutch, Mr. Horsepower with drag strips…”

Thanks to the work she’s done, Hotrod Jen is recognized as one of the most badass cruisers in central Pennsylvania. And thanks to the ink she’s had done, it’s easy to spot this tattooed beauty as she’s grinding that classic steel cruiser bike up the steep hills of Bath, Pa.

For more: The Rockabilly Ride starts at 5 p.m. from the Lansdale train station and ends at the Walnut Bar for a rockabilly show. Check out Hotrod Jen’s work: myspace.com/metalhotrodgirl