The shops

by Michael Barry

I grew up playing with ball bearings on the floor of a bike store on King St. by the name of Bicyclesport. It was a neat little shop with a staff that was funny and a layout that was ideal for hide and seek, forts and adventures. The frame shop was in the back in a small space were the mechanics worked on the dirty city bikes and sparkling racers. The front end was the showroom with walls lined in rainbow world champion stripes and gleaming parts and bikes--tourers, racers, and treaders. There were about half a dozen employees with my Mom and Dad's offices upstairs. My Mom would do the books while I pinged bearings like small cannonballs around the floor space. Lunch was taken at the St.Lawrence Market or around the corner at a small diner that would serve me fries, milkshakes and pinches on the cheeks.

Then the shop moved two stores down to a new spot--it was bigger, had a frame shop, a mechanics shop, a huge showroom, a basement to discover and office to hold four adults with lots of papers to work on. The staff doubled and the number of bikes and ball bearings tripled.

The shop had everything you could need--a pair of grips for a BMX bike or a sixty-tooth chainring. My dreams of racing as a professional started to really take root on this shop floor. Elite racers would come by and I would look up at them and dream of pedalling in their events. I read all the magazines that lined the shelves and look through all the brochures in my Dad's office to pick out the gear I wanted on my new Mariposa or BMX bike.

I loved hanging about the shop and as I got older would travel down as soon as school got out to hang about. My Dad was patient with me. I think I was often in the way and, when I was, he gave me a job--"get some sticky buns at the market, put on the kettle for some tea, clean your bike".

As I grew, the shops evolved and as a teenager my Dad sized down and moved the operation into a back lane. I was still at school and would spend all my spare time messing about on my bike, or riding it with my buddy Luke. It was a great experience. We had fun, discovered new lunch places and started finding the local shops with the cute girls. I was growing up and the dream of a cycling for a living was still fresh in my head. As I started to travel a little more for cycling, my Dad moved the shop again--to our neighborhood in North Toronto. The shop was within walking distance of our home and between the two were a dozen or so new lunch places on Bayview. It was a neat llittle shop that I loved to visit on the way home from my rides.

When back in Toronto after being over in Europe I would stop over for lunch and tea. Now, I live in Boulder and Spain and race all over the world and my father has moved again. The new spot is a place that is made for his dreams: to build frames, supply odd, "specialized" bits and pieces, and work on his vintage bikes. I am excited for him and am excited to keep growing in a new environment. The shops have been my second home through my lifetime. The shops are responsible for pushing me to keep plugging away at my dream and goals. The staff has provided me with guidance and care. The shop has gone from being my kindergarten as a child, to my hang out spot, to a place of comfort and familiarity after being away for months. I have gone through growing pains just as the shop has, but I think my father is now on his way to figuring just where he wants to be: with his bikes, building frames, drinking tea while munching on biscuits and going for the occasional ride around the park with my Mom.

Michael Barry

Michael races for the T-Mobile Team.
For more from Michael check out his site at http://www.michaelbarry.ca

Michael is also a regular contributor to Pedal magazine and likes to bake sour-dough bread.