Inside Vecchio's Bicicletteria, a treasure trove of American cycling history

In a corner of Boulder, Colorado sits Vecchio’s Bicicletteria. While the shop has been around since 2000, it has changed places and ownership over the years. Nowadays, the shop is located away from its old home on Pearl Street, the commercial hub of Boulder, and instead can be found in an unassuming strip mall outside of town.

Whatever Vecchio’s lacks from the outside, however, it makes up for on the inside. Once through the glass doors, the surroundings of vintage bikes, memorabilia and other curios will send a cycling fan’s head spinning.

Since the city is the centre of the American cycling universe, as many of the characters of our recent documentary on the city explained, Vecchio's has become a treasure trove of bygone aspects of cycling.

Watch: Inside the cycling heartland of Boulder, Colorado

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The spectacular entrance of Vecchio's is something that is hard to match

Eyes dart between the jerseys high on the walls, the classically welded steel bikes of yesteryear hanging from the rafters, and the signed jerseys and race posters from cycling luminaries. Pictures and posters line every wall of the shop, while every piece of peculiar cycling heritage seems to be embossed with the signature of a famous cyclist.

Everyone who has come to race on the North American continent, it seems, has graced Vecchio’s with one item or another.

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If you like Campagnolo or things that shine, the cash register at Vecchio's might speak to you

Beneath the cash register glints a full collection of vintage Campagnolo parts, while hanging on the bikes in the back are some of the extra jerseys that have yet to find permanent homes. These include Taylor Phinney’s national champion skinsuit and a tattered La Vie Claire jersey signed by none other than Greg LeMond, Steve Bauer and Andy Hampsten, even if the names are fading.

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This particular La Vie Claire jersey was not on display, nor hanging on a rack. Instead, it was neatly folded on the handlebars of a bike tucked in the back of the shop, only noticed after a lot of looking

One corner in particular is home to a string of signatures and jerseys that just might be unrivalled in their eccentricity. From left to right the jerseys and signatures run: an Eddy Merckx signed Moltini yellow jersey, a Greg LeMond signed World Champion kit, a Lance Armstrong signed yellow jersey, a poster signed Miguel Induráin pieces, an Andy Hampsten signed pink jersey and a signed poster from the Gavia in 1988.

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How would Greg LeMond and Lance Armstrong feel about having their signed jersey's next to each other? We can only guess

For its best and worst times, cycling’s history will not be forgotten. Not by Vecchio’s at least.

One bike from two legends of the sport

While all that colours one corner of the shop, the real intrigue is found on the far side of the showroom: a glittering blue bike that was a consummate example of 1980s steel bicycles ridden by American cycling royalty.

“That was Connie Carpenter’s bike, it was labelled as a Puch, but it was built by Albert Eisentraut, a very well-known, preeminent American frame-builder that taught most other US frame builders how to do their jobs,” Jim Potter, the shop’s co-owner, says as he looks up at the bike.

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The refurbished and re-branded bike of two champions

Potter, a long-time Boulder resident and bike mechanic, has been one of the owners of Vecchio’s since 2013. And while he might not have owned the shop for the entirety of its history, he is very much the steward that continues its glittering legacy. Importantly, he is also well-versed in the story of the most curious item in the collection.

“After she raced, she lent it to her then-boyfriend, Davis Phinney, with the Austro-Daimler name on it, so he had a bike to race on before he joined 7-Eleven. It was about two sizes too big for Davis, but in the 1980s when someone offered you a free bike to race, you raced it," he continues.

That's right: one bike for two of America’s foundational riders.

The bike, however, was not an item that was cherished. Over the years after the bike was replaced by Phinney’s 7-Eleven bikes, the repurposed bike that was two sizes too big was lost in the clutter of a local cycling shop where Potter worked. When that shop folded, that bike that was forgotten in the attic was dusted off and brought to Vecchio’s to be one of the collectable items that now sit all over the shop.

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The vintage componentry of the referbished Austro-Daimler

“We found this frame that had the Austro-Daimler name, but it was clearly not actually one of those,” Potter recalls. “But, without knowing the history, we took it in and refurbished it for the shop with the same decal.”

Later on, Davis Phinney, who still lives in the area, came into the shop and noticed the bike. Only at that point was this fascinating story of hand-me-down bikes between two early American cycling pioneers brought to the surface.

While the bike now hangs in the rafters of the shop, it is a story that says something unique about American cycling, its legacy and the importance of Vecchio’s in Boulder and American cycling at large.

Protecting American cycling history

While that story is in its own right an amusing anecdote, it is also a great example of the struggle of persevering in the ethos of the ‘glory days’ of the sport in North America.

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The jersey's of American cycling's past hung up in the rafters

In America, away from the old cycling frame builders and parts manufacturers of Europe, the sports legacy and heritage are carried on in different ways. America does not have the museums of Flanders. It does not have the big factory showrooms in Italy.

What America does have is a collection of small shops that have withstood the changing tides of retail economics of the last decades – shops in downtowns, strip malls and suburbs that are operated by people like Potter who know what cycling in America has meant over the years. People who know what they are looking at when they see an old bike at a thrift shop or Facebook marketplace ad. Places where a vintage collector would want their bespoke bike from the late 1900s put up for the world to see.

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On one of the vintage mountain bikes, we spotted one of Michelin's old tyres sporting the famous green treads of the brand

Or, better yet, places where a legend of the sport might wander into and identify a relic of their cycling upbringing.

The bikes on the walls of Vecchio’s represent a niche of a niche – American cycling history. Nevertheless, the story of the fake Austro-Daimler on the wall, the 1988 vintage Salsa mountain bike, the Coors Classic banner and the Red Zinger Classic hat in the case of old components are all fundamentally preserved in this place.

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Vecchio's: a panoramic of cycling lore

While it seems small, collections in shops like Vecchio's keep the central ethos of America’s short but glorious cycling past alive, especially as the racing spirit has seemed to be all but extinguished with the end of the American stage races in recent years.

Vecchio’s, if nothing else, shows that American cycling history is something worth celebrating.

To learn more about Boulder, be sure to check out our new documentary, Cycling Heartlands: Boulder, to learn more about Connie Carpenter-Phinney and the town that is the centre of the American cycling universe.