The phone is made of bakelite and many of the parts they sell are rare or antique. History is there for the taking in bike store of Eindhoven brothers Martien and Toon. Still, it is a bit too early for a museum.
“Look, a customer came with this”, Toon van Gestel, holding up a yellowed booklet, says. It is an ANWB* guide for cyclists from 1920. Eindhoven businesses are also mentioned among the addresses where you can go to with a flat tire or a defect on your bike. In Stratum, these are Gebroeders (brothers) van Gestel on Geldropseweg. “See?” Toon beams. “This business was already mentioned then”.
Mental arithmetic
Van Gestel family has lived on Geldropseweg since time immemorial. The business was founded by their grandfather in 1909, together with his brother. “But after a few months, that brother didn’t feel like it anymore and decided to become a hairdresser. Across the street”, Martien gestures. According to them, the brothers are the only ones in the city who still patch a bicycle tire, instead of replacing it. And when amounts have to be added up, they do the maths by head.
The shop is on the street side, around the corner is the workshop where customers drop off their bikes. The space in between is used as a warehouse for more than 22 thousand bike parts, which are written by hand in a folder (but also stored in the computer). “Look, do you see this?”, Toon, after he has reached into the cupboard behind the cash register, asks. “A real crank wedge. Almost nobody has those anymore. But we still have a handful of them”. A device that is prominently present is a bright orange device with which you can read old-fashioned index cards, which used to serve as a kind of catalogue.
Dance studio
The men plan to continue as a bike repair shop for the time being, although there are plenty of wild plans for the building. Toon’s daughter has been dreaming of her own dance studio for years, and doing something with the historical items is also an option. Martien: “The children sometimes say: you should turn it into a museum. But when, we don’t know either…”
*Algemene Nederlandse Wielrijdersbond, Dutch cycling association
Source: Studio040
Translated by: Bob
