Q&A with Nick Wladyka
Residence: Warner Robins
Occupation: Owner/operator Bicycle Service Center
Q: How long have you been repairing bicycles?
A: Fifty years.
Q: How old are you now?
A: Sixty-two. I started when I was 12. I had to fix the internal hub gear on my bike and the guy at the bike shop I bought the part from said tell your grandfather to come in and I’ll show him how to do it. I told him, no, I was the one fixing it. He told me in that case come back in the summer and he’d give me a job. One way or the other, I’ve been working on bikes ever since.
Q: Where was that?
A: Patterson, New Jersey. I grew up there and in lower Manhattan in New York, in Greenwich Village.
Q: Has repairing bikes been your only work?
A: No, I built specialized machinery to seal vinyl products and urethane products. With the bikes, I’ve worked full time, had shops or did repairs on the side.
Q: Have you worked in a lot of shops?
A: My first bike shop was in Fort Lee, New Jersey near the George Washington Bridge. My second shop was in Greenwich Village. I worked in a large shop — at one time about the largest in the county — in Paramus, New Jersey.
Q: What kept you at it?
A: I liked it. And I fully understood it.
Q: What brought you to Warner Robins?
A: I came here to retire and be near family.
Q: But you opened a repair shop?
A: I needed something to do. First I worked a while in a little shop in Macon then decided to have my own place.
Q: What’s a bike mechanic’s most common repair?
A: General tune-ups, including things like cleaning the bike, checking bearings and checking and making adjustments at various points, checking wheels and spoke tensions, checking gears and cables, checking brakes and levers, that sort of thing. Making sure tire pressure is good. You can see the whole list on our website.
Q: Where is your website?
A: At www.thebicycleservicecenter.com.
Q: Do you mainly work with serious riders’ bikes? Kids’ bikes? What?
A: People from every walk of life. We repair and maintain any and all bikes whether they’re department store bikes or high-end. People are welcome to stop in and look around. We have some new and used bikes in the showroom and lots of parts and accessories.
Q: Is bicycling in decline or on the rise?
A: There’s always new people riding bikes. People want the exercise, the fun, maybe they want to commute. Kids still love the fun of bikes, but really there are probably more adults into it now.
Q: Why is that? Baby boomers wanting to recapture the bike of their youth? Or get healthy?
A: To adults, I think it’s getting out and getting that sense of freedom back. Slowing down and seeing things you don’t see when you go by in a hurry. And yeah, finding and getting a bike like the one you had when you were a kid — getting exactly like it was. I do restorations like that all the time.
Q: How can people keep their bikes in good shape?
A: Lubrication and tire pressure are probably the two biggest things to help prevent worse repair. If you feel something is rubbing or making a noise it shouldn’t, check it. Fix it.
Q: What’s the most costly dis-repair on a bicycle?
A: Riding a bike with tire pressure too low. That’s the most common and can cause all kinds of wear and problems. Probably only one in 10 bikes that come in have the right air pressure.
Q: Are you willing to check pressure for people and make sure they know what’s right?
A: It’s on the tire, what the right air pressure is, but sure, I’m more than happy to help people out like that.
Q: What’s your most unusual repair?
A: Somebody dropped a metal rod down the seat post and when they’d sit on the seat it would push the rod into the pedal crank and lock it up. And they couldn’t get it out. It was crazy.
Q: You’ve been around bikes a long time, what’s their appeal?
A: It’s such a basically simple mode of transportation that only requires your own effort. It gets you from place to place many times faster than walking and you can go greater distances. It’s fun.
May is National Bike Month, and this is National Bike to Work Week.
Answers may have been edited for length and clarity. Compiled by Michael W. Pannell. Contact him at mwpannell@gmail.com.
This story was originally published May 15, 2016 at 3:12 PM with the headline "Q&A with Nick Wladyka."