I step off the #701 transit bus in downtown Haney, pull up my hood, and ram my hands into my pockets. I’m underdressed, like any 90’s teenager, and it’s bloody cold. I’m also nervous as hell. I’ve never had much trepidation talking to adults, but I’ve never met Floyd, the owner of High Gear bike shop in Maple Ridge (which has been gone for years now), and he has a reputation as an extra-surly crank amongst other riders at school.
Deep breath. You see, one of my buddies had just picked up the latest Kona catalogue. It’s 1996, I HAD TO HAVE ONE, and High Gear Bikes was the only Kona dealer within my dominion.
The lights are on, but when I pull on the front door it doesn’t budge. I look up and see a small handwritten note indicating that potential patrons should come to the rear door. Down to the end of the block, around the corner, and up the alley, I go. There is a man sitting out back on a worn white plastic patio chair reading, what I take from the saucy cover to be, a romance novel. He looks up. Sighs. “Yeah, what do you want?”
“Ummm, I heard you have the new Kona catalogue‽”
Auspicious beginnings, but High Gear became one of my go-to shops and as a teenager, it probably would have been more efficient for my part-time jobs just to pay those shops directly. It was never a place to hang out but it’s where I got my first directions to Burke and Woodlot trails and picked up my first real tidbits of knowledge for servicing my own bike.
Thanks Floyd, wherever you are these days.
Many thanks to Daleth Hildebrand for the photo.