Started in 1962 a small section in our retail toy store “Our Store” for childrens bikes’n’ trikes + pedal cars was a instant success. 1964 was the Rome Olympics and for the 1st time we saw bicycle competition on TV. That year we imported from Italy 10 Racing 10 speed bikes for Xmas. Sold out by Thanksgiving.
But the big surprise was the interest with the English 3-speed Raleigh Ladies & Gents models. Ordered 10 sold 150 for Christmas. Bicycle sales increased each year through 1968, to where we had over 50% of the store in bikes. In 1969 closed “Our Store” Toys-Hobbies-Bikes and reopened same location strictly bikes new name “Ye Olde English Bike Haus”. English,French,Italian all European brands. Only popular at that time.In our repair shop we started to modify existing bike parts to begin with,then designing and making our own light weight parts. Around 1974 a few hobby friends began to work with Carbon-fibre Home-made material. They 1st made over size tubes of CF and they made a bike frame & fork with them and in our shop we machined a new no flanged wheel hub design with sealed bearings,ultra light! Then my eldest son made the 1st carbon fibre handlebar in Haus. We went on to design a airfoil aluminum bar which sold faster than we could make them. At about the same time we found in a old bicycle journal a history of bicycle pedals and found in 1890 "The Perpetual” just a simple cylinder pedal.
The male cyclist of that time wore medium heeled boots and they pedaled against the inside of the heel on the sole of their boot, locked in a forward motion only. Well our hobby friends figured how to use this simple system for 360 degrees of power thru the pedal into the crank. Eureka! the broom closet clamp.So they hand made a Nylon “CLIP” to go 304 degrees around the pedal cylinder to attach to any shoe. We made and sold in the local market 25 pair for testing in the field. A few modifications were made to the “CLIP”. One was a built in retainer to prevent sliding off. We went to many professional shows to display our light designs.
The pedal was the main attraction. We sold thousands of pairs early on,then came competition. So our
“Downhill” Aero design handlebars picked up the slack for a while. Then our BIG break came along from The school of Massachewssets Institute of Technology chose our pedal design over all others to be incorporated on their Human Powered Aircraft project. "The Daedalus” project, 1st successful flight @ Edwards AFB. California 1987. Then on, for longest flight from island of Crete,Greece to their mainland pedal flying over 27 miles over water with AeroLite Pedals.