SPORT REPORT
On weekends, when you bicycle from Venice Beach up Washington Boulevard toward Marina del Rey, you can’t miss Hymie Stone’s truck. It’s an old, lopsided Frito-Lay truck crammed with greasy nuts and bolts, with the words “Instant Bicycle Repair” scrawled on the side. It’s a landmark. So is Stone--a white-haired man in overalls, stooped over someone’s bicycle, saving someone’s day.
Stone, 78, has been fixing bicycles on the beach bike path for 30 years. He began cycling on the path in the ‘60s and whenever he passed a rider with a problem, Stone, a mechanic and scrap-metal dealer, was like a doctor coming across an injury accident: He had to help. “But I’d get no thanks,” he complains. So he started a weekend business. He struck a deal with a bicycle-rental shop on Venice Beach: He’d repair its bikes in exchange for the space to fix other bikes. In six months, Stone was making more money than the rental owners and they kicked him out.
In 1984, he bought the truck. He had trouble finding a parking place until he came across his current spot in 1989. He struck a deal with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department. In exchange for fixing police bicycles, Stone gets to park his truck at Mildred Avenue and Washington Boulevard on weekends, rent-free.
Stone inflates a tire for a buck three dozen times a day. In fifteen minutes, he’ll re-assemble a cable system and make $20. On a busy summer Saturday, when Stone says 10,000 cyclers ride by, people wait in line. He raises handlebars, lowers seats, retools brakes--all the while complaining about people who ask to borrow his tools or have work done for free. Then a young couple rides up for a little oil on their chains. “Ask this guy if he has confidence in my work,” Stone grumbles.
“Before I bought this bike,” the guy says, “I had Hymie look it over. I wouldn’t bring my bikes anywhere else.”
Stone doesn’t smile. He doesn’t even look up from his work. As fast as the couple arrived, they’re gone. Settling back on an overturned milk crate, Stone tells me that he still rides. On a typical day, he and his 83-year-old buddy bike from Santa Monica to Temescal Canyon and back--twice.