by Brian MortonVancouver Sun
Are you in the market for a never-before-used, 50-year-old bike that’s still in the original box?
Then consider attending a unique auction in Surrey on Sunday that will see up to 200 bikes owned by Cap’s Bicycles Langley — some dating to the early 1900s — sold off. Many are described as ‘museum-quality collector bikes.’
There’s unicycles, tricycles from the 1940s, beautiful ’50s-era bikes with white walls and chrome, and plenty of European road bikes from the ’70s.
“There’s a big variety of bikes there,” said Cap’s store manager Jeremy Gosse.
“Some of them are brand new and still in the original boxes, decades old. A lot of them were never touched.”
The auction, which starts at 9:30 a.m., takes place at Able Auctions, 13557-77 Ave.; preceded by a Saturday preview from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
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• Click here to see more on the auction site
“There’s a lot from Schwinn, which used to make bikes decades ago and another one is a road bike made by Peugeot,” added Gosse. “There’s a lot of cruiser bikes as well. He (late Cap’s founder Gerald Hobbis, known as ‘Cap’) just kept a collection of all the bikes from the different eras.”
Gosse said the bikes being offered at auction only represent part of Cap’s historic collection.
“We still have a huge number in the store. It’s not our whole collection. And we still have a display of every era of bike in the store.”
He said the auction will open up other business opportunities for Cap’s. “There’s now more space to work with.”
Cap’s Bicycles has been a family run business since being founded in 1932. Cap Hobbis and his brothers started out with a hardware store at Sapperton in New Westminster, repairing bicycles for friends and family. The Langley Cap’s location was opened in 1979 and re-established in 2002.
– Brian Morton is a writer with the Vancouver Sun
