Great Bike Shops: Sunflower Outdoor & Bike

Great bike shops have a soul. They have a personality. They exude love and enthusiasm for the sport. They’re often housed in cool buildings. Sunflower Outdoor & Bike is a classic example. I still call it by its old name, Sunflower Surplus. When I first wandered into the shop as a college freshman 27 years ago at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, the store mostly sold high-end hiking gear with some Army-Navy surplus mixed in. Over the years, it has expanded and now has a wing devoted to cycling.

The shop was founded in 1972 in historic downtown Lawrence in the Baker-Ridenour building, once the home of a grocery company. A water heater fire burned the building in 1997, but the structure was lovingly restored and still has the same feel it had when I first walked on its hardwood floors. The store’s front awnings have a nice touch, supported with old steel bike frames. You don’t see this type of thing at the bike shops in bland strip malls and big box stores in nearby Kansas City.

A great bike shop is also a shrine, cathedral and museum for the sport. It gets us thinking about the past, present and future of cycling. It’s just not a showcase for the latest pieces of buffed-up, shiny carbon eye candy. In Sunflower, the new bikes are displayed along a long wall of rough exposed brick and sandstone. On the wall are all kinds of memorabilia. Some of it is on loan. Much of it belongs to store owner Dan Hughes, who started working at the shop in 1989 when he was studying anthropology at KU. He eventually bought the store. (Eddy Merckx didn’t actually ride the below bike. But it was certainly Merckx worthy, after a few seatpost adjustments!)

More great memories, history and cycling lore.

The shop is small and doesn’t have a deep inventory of parts. But it has great suppliers who deliver quickly. I needed some Campy bottom bracket bearings, and the Trek shop in Kansas City said it would take a week in a half to order them. The Sunflower guys got them in three days. (More about this later in a separate post). Needless to say, the service is great. When I needed a front derailleur clamp for my new Moots frame, the guys needed to know the seat tube’s diameter. I wasn’t sure, so they said: “OK, we’ll just call Moots.” Within minutes, they had an answer.

When I recently saw the below parts-storage system, I almost cried. I was fresh out of China, where most of the bike shops were a cramped, chaotic mess of parts. At my neighborhood shop in Taiwan, the mechanics worked on the sidewalk next to a convenience store. The below level of organization blew me away.

I’m still trying to figure out this link to Lawrence Iron Works.

Races: Remembering ‘Alex Zuuull-lah’

They were standing behind me chatting about the Tour de France. I wasn’t paying much attention. I had positioned myself on the top half of the killer climb at the circuit race in the Tour of  Lawrence, Kansas. I was trying to get good shots of the ugly faces of the riders as they gritted their way up the hill. But my head snapped back when I heard one of the guys say, “Alex Zulle.” Spoken with a slow, earnest Kansas accent, it sounded more like, “Alex Zuuull-lah.”

I spun around and saw a man who looked like he could be a Midwestern real estate agent or insurance salesman in his early 50s. Not someone you would think would be familiar with Alex Zulle – the Swiss rider who was among the best in the 1990s. But the guy knew a lot about Zulle. With great authority, he was talking about a stage in the Tour when Zulle got blocked by a crash. I cherish such moments, times when people shatter your stereotypes and preconceptions.

In yesterday’s post, I slagged off Americans for having a low, low cycling IQ. I still believe this is generally true. But people will often surprise me. And in the age of the Internet and cable TV, people have easy access to great resources to educate themselves.

Unfortunately, I can’t provide much of a race report for the Tour of Lawrence. Because of family obligations, I was only able to stay for the master’s and Cat 5 races. And I wasn’t wearing my reporter hat that day. But the Web site listed on the race profile above offers plenty of information and results.

A few random pictures and thoughts:

These gals are pinning on their race numbers, getting ready for battle. American women are awesome. I love the way they really get in there and mix it up. While I was away from the U.S. for the past 10 years, I missed out on the tattoo craze. I’m constantly amazed by the huge, elaborate tats on women.

The Cat 5 guys line up. This is probably where I would be. I was reaching terrific form in March but with my move and other pressures, my training has dropped off. It’s really depressing to be gaining weight in the summer! But this will end soon.

The main SRAM mechanic wasn’t very talkative. He’s based in Chicago and drives this vehicle to races all over the country. His sidekick was friendlier and we chatted a bit. He’s based in St. Louis and works as a freelance wrench. He said he mostly works for some kind of Bud Light powerboat team. This is a sport I don’t understand well. When he’s not working for the boats or SRAM, he’ll do some wrenching on the weekend at bike shops who need some extra help. Apologies for not snapping a photo of him.

There weren’t many spectators for the early races. But some of the racers had tiny groups of tifosi. What they lacked in numbers they made up for beauty.