Generous Bike Shops in U.S. and Canada

It rained hard last night. Fortunately it wasn’t raining in the morning. Mac made steak, potatoes, beets, and eggs for breakfast. It was a little crazy going through Buffalo and it's surrounding suburbs.

Mac’s left pedal was making a clicking noise. We stopped at a bike shop for an overhaul. The shop owner only sells used bikes and he has lots of them. He fixed Mac’s pedal, insisted on overhauling the other pedal and gave Mac a Canadian beer. The shop owner refused payment but asked for us to send him a postcard.

We continued through Buffalo on the “well paved but poorly marked” bike path to the Peace Bridge.

Today was a day of extraordinary generosity from bike shops. Mac had been looking to replace one of the bearing cones in the front hub, but so far no bikes shops had the part. McCooey’s Bike and Vacuum shop in Fort Erie, Ontario not only had the part, but stayed open late to rebuild our front hub and would only accept $1 Canadian as payment. It was interesting to see high end Trek bicycles right next to Hoover Vacs. “Every house has one and they need to be fixed” said the owner about vacuum cleaners.