The last bicycle shop in Soho apparently closed a few years ago. It was located at no.36 Great Pulteney Street and was owned and managed by Paulo Garbini. His shop had renderings of two miniature penny-farthing bicycles mounted on the facade and they are the only remaining trace of a fantastic cycling oasis.
When I was cycle courier I would regularly pop in to get new inner tubes, pumps, locks etc and admire the beautiful cycling shirts and wonderful bikes that seemed to hang from the ceiling as if by magic.
4 comments:
I remember this shop! I was a courier too! In early ‘90s. I wasn’t sure if I’d just imagined this place....dodgy memory...I think the Soho Cycling Club has some kind of affiliation with the place....I never joined the Club unfortunately as I ended up moving to Australia for a while. Happy days on the London courier circuit.
Paolo was a great guy and his daughter a lovely girl. I seem to remember he had his first shop in Tottenham Court Road, you had to let your bike down into the basement via a pulley, before he moved to Great Pultney Street. Shame that bike shops all went corporate. Pat Hanlon's in Palmers Green was another fantastic, friendly local bike shop, it closed in the early eighties.
Super random! I just remembered this shop looking at a bike video - when I was a courier for Creative in late 80s he offered me a job to get in a van selling Colnagos around the country. Caterer took a different turn but it was a sliding doors moment.
I was a courier in the 80s too and I was constantly in and out of Paulo's shop I still have one of his bikes which is possibly my most treasured possession. Unfortunately I got knocked off it about 20 years ago and had to have the frame repaired and resprayed so I lost the decals. Otherwise the bike looks almost as good as new and rides like it too. If anyone happens to have a photo of one of his bikes I'd love to see it so i can try and recreate the decals
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