Vintage Tools
Our vice in use inside Madison Square Garden, 1934
We have, and sometimes still use, bike shop tools that go back over the past 100 years.
A big part of our tool collection comes (via Jeff Groman) from the old Brennan bike shop in Newark, New Jersey. John “Pop” Brennan was a master mechanic and framebuilder. He frequently worked at the Newark Velodrome and Madison Square Garden during the six-day track races. Pop built bicycles in his Newark workshop for many of the best racers of the day including Bill Honeman, Frank Kramer, Tino Reboli, Micky Franciose, Charlie Logan, and Alf Goullet. Pop began his metal working career as a chandelier maker. He learned the fine art of tube bending and joinery while fabricating exquisite chandeliers for theaters in New York and other major cities. Later he used this skill to bend steel for handlebars and frames.
Pop sat here and built many a wheel.
Use your thumb as an alignment guide
Always a sharp dresser, at work in 1959
From the Brennan shop we have the old wooden blocks that were used for forming custom handlebar shapes. There is the old Wilton Vice and the custom wheel truing chair. Pedal wrenches, spoke threaders, bearing presses and frame milling tools. You name it.
Spoke threading machine
Fenders roller tool made in Bremerton, 1940’s
Nagoya Wheel Truing stand, 1946
From our side of the country we have a fender roller and dolly, used to smooth out dented bicycle fenders, that was made in Bremerton some time in the 1940’s.
Bob Seal’s Cool Tool
From Bob Seals, a pioneer in the mountain bike world, we have the Cool Tool. Bob was the founder and original builder of Retrotec mountain bikes, and he came up with the Cool Tool in the mid 1980’s. The Cool Tool was the first bicycle-specific multi-tool around, and it gave you 10 different tools in one palm-size gadget. Countless multi-tools were inspired by the original Cool Tool, and we’re all pretty happy not to have a jersey pocket full of individual tools when we go out riding these days. By the way, Bob sold his design to Gerber (who subsequently killed the tool), and later invented the Klean Kanteen aluminum water bottle.
Brennan rim bending tool.
Brennan’s blocks for forming handlebars
Holland Mechanics Wheel Jig
Some of the fun we have with our old tools is figuring out what exactly they do. You see, the simple everyday tools wear out (note to archeologists out there: it’s the tools that nobody used or liked very much that last eons). The stuff that lingers around are usually extremely specific (like for adjusting a specific bottom bracket style that came and went in just a few years). Stop in and take your best guess as to the use of some of our “mystery tools”…