R&F Bike and Mower Service lives on.

Monday, April 02, 2001

R&F Bike and Mower Service lives on.

The wheels keep turning.

Something so good should not be forgotten.

Neither should somebody so good to so many for so long go ignored.

If only Fred Godfredson were alive.

If only his son, Russ Godfredson, knew.

When Susan Tweet was going through her parents’ keepsakes last fall, she came across a pen-and-ink sketch by Austin artist Bruce Loeschen. It was one of his most famous, a montage of the city of Austin.

"It got me to thinking," she recalled. "I wondered if he could do something like that for the R&F bike shop?"

Tweet went to see Loeschen and he agreed to sketch a personal gift for the five children of Russ and Helen Godfredson.

Loeschen, who enjoys a national reputation as an artist, asked Tweet for a picture of the former Austin landmark and she gave him several. From those pictures, Loeschen created a montage of the popular family-owned business.

When Christmas 2000 arrived, Tweet gave one to each of her four siblings and they were excited.

When word leaked of the montage, others were interested.

Now, the montage is displayed at the Austin Area Art Center and Medicap Pharmacy at 1109 Oakland Ave. West in Austin, where the R&F bike shop and the home of its owners once existed.

It also hangs on a wall at the classic Kenny’s Oak Grill in Austin, which celebrates things past in its own proud way.

But the curiosity didn’t end there. When visitors to the OakPark Mall art gallery saw it, they wanted to know where they could obtain one. When shoppers at Medicap Pharmacy saw it displayed on a wall at Jon Engelhardt’s business, they wanted one. Now, it seems everyone wants one.

R&F bike shop was that kind of place.

Russ Godfredson now suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and is a resident at Good Samaritan Center in Albert Lea.

He has been there since 1995. His wife, Helen, was a resident at Comforcare Good Samaritan Center in Austin when she died in 1996.

The couple had five children: Michael of Michigan, David of North Carolina; Larry of Iowa; and Randy and Susan of Austin. Larry continues the family tradition with his own bike shop at Storm Lake, Iowa.

Their father, Russ, went to work for his father when he was 11 years old in 1938. The shop was located in a shed off an alley behind the old Bud and Bob’s Grocery Store on Austin’s near northeast side.

After the military service, Russ took over the family’s business and later moved to the Oakland Avenue West location where the Medicap Pharmacy is today.

After his mother died, his father grew older and Fred Godfredson eventually went to Burr Oak Manor nursing home in Austin, where he died.

Meanwhile, Russ and Helen enjoyed life on the city’s west side, where they operated a one-of-a-kind bike shop.

"He was really quite a successful entrepreneur," said youngest sibling, Susan. "I can still see the new Schwinn bikes when they arrived and I can hear the doorbell tingle when someone came in to have a bike repaired. It was a wonderful place."

If it wasn’t a good bike when it came into R&F, it was a good bike when it left the shop so good was Russ at his work.

In fact, he was a living legend. Schwinn, arguably the best two-wheeler of its time, developed for R&F a loyal customer base.

"Mom and dad would give each of us kids our first new bicycle, but after that we had to work, earn money and buy our own. That’s the way it was in my family," Susan said. "But Dad also sold Vespa scooters and Whizzer motor bikes and ice skates and all the accessories. We all had to work in the shop, too, but we didn’t mind, because it was so much fun. He taught us the work ethic and values that we would need in life."

The sons and daughter also learned how to take apart a bike and maintain it in good running condition. Bicycling was the Godfredson family’s favorite mode of travel. The entire family rode bikes in parades and took them along on vacations.

Who didn’t enjoy seeing Russ with his trademark cap and handlebar moustache riding a unicycle or one of his antique high-wheelers in a parade?

Russ accepted bicycles on trade to allow boys and girls and others to move up to a bigger bike and a better one.

"I remember kids would bring jars of money into the shop and dump them on the counter for mom and dad to count. That’s how they bought their bikes. A little at a time using their allowances or paper route money," Susan said.

In addition to his own children, Russ hired neighborhood kids to work in the job and getting a summer job at R&F became a badge of prestige among youths in the city.

Russ helped fledgling bike clubs grow and came to amass a collection of priceless antique bikes that rivaled any other of its kind.

R&F became a popular hangout for kids and teen-agers and later with adults. The owner was a renowned storyteller, whose passion for history had no equal.

Children became teen-agers and then adults and then seniors. For over a half-century, buying a bike at R&F was a family tradition.

On Christmas Eve each December, Helen and her children waited patiently, while Russ delivered new Schwinn bikes that were ordered by parents and grandparents as surprise presents for loved ones.

Each day of his business life was the same. He operated the business on a "pay-as-you-can" basis, according to his daughter.

As he amassed more bikes and more bike parts, he would store them first in an abandoned gas station across the street from R&F and later in garages throughout the community.

He filled every room in the bike shop, every addition to the shop and every other space that was available except for his wife Helen’s beloved flower garden

"I think he was one of the happiest people ever," said Susan. "he was able to do what he liked to do all his life. He started with his father and then continued forever. How many people can say they have done what they love doing all their lives? My dad could."

When the awful cruelty of Alzheimer’s disease became noticeable to his children they anguished over what to do until deciding their father must go to a nursing home.

His father, Fred, deceased, and then his beloved, Helen, Russ escaped seeing what happened to the legendary R&F bike shop when an auction was held of the property house and other buildings and thousands upon thousands of bicycles in August 1996.

The auction attracted hundreds of people, including both "serious" buyers of antiques and the others interested as much in the nostalgia of having a piece of the business that was so important to generation upon generation of Austin families.

When the auction was over, the property was sold and the buildings cleared to make way for a pharmacy.

Each of the children kept their own keepsakes and youngest child, Susan, became the unofficial family historian.

"I’ve got so many pictures, so many clippings, so many posters, it’s just unbelievable. When you look back at all of that stuff you begin to realize what he meant to the city," she said.

The daughter is not exaggerating.

Dan Ulwelling, owner of Rydjor Bike Shop in downtown Austin, knows a thing or two about bicycles. On the walls of his business are displayed some bikes Ulwelling purchased at the R&F auction.

Some people thought there should have been a museum, too.

"Austin has an opportunity to set up and establish one of the best bicycle museums in the area," Glenn Schoonmaker of Rose Creek wrote in March 1995. "Russ Godfredson owns one of the best and most interesting antique bicycle collections to be found in several states."

His letter to the editor of the Austin Daily Herald, among other pleas to rescue the R&F bike collection and preserve it for all future generations to enjoy, fell on deaf ears. Nothing was ever done.

Other dealers and antique bike collectors own their share. The Godfredson children have their own keepsake two-wheelers. Others sit rusting in garages or basements.

The thousands upon thousands of bikes that once pedaled to and from R&F are only memories of another time of our lives.

Now, 8-by-10 reproductions of Loeschen’s montage of the original R&F bike shop, as well as note cards are rekindling interest. The demand has been so great that reprints are being offered for sale at Austin Area Art Center in OakPark Mall, The Hardy Geranium and Lu’s Forever Framing. In addition, Susan Tweet is taking orders from her Austin home – call 433-5310 for more information.

There was no other business like R&F Bike and Mower Service – its official name. The father-and-son business hearkens back to a day and time in modern culture that will never return.

Think about it: a bell over the door to announce visitors, little boys and girls with piggy banks full of coins eying a favorite Schwinn bike, their parents and grandparents returning for repairs, serious bicyclists wanting the new lightweight models, hand brakes, multiple gears and narrow tires followed by the return of "fat" tires now called mountain bikes and the pay-as-you-can policy for everyone.

The owner, who knew everybody who came into his business and had his own style. "Never stop in to see Russ if you were in a hurry to get someplace else, because it will be impossible to get out of there without a story or two," became the complaint, whispered but never uttered lest one would offend the man.

So many bikes, so many memories. R&F bike shop could never survive today the way it flourished before.

Susan, the daughter, does not apologize for promoting the memory of her father’s business. "It touched all of us," she said. "When you look at the picture Mr. Loeschen sketched you will see how it did that. Everybody who seeks it remembers a different part of that picture. It means something to everybody who ever went to R&F bike shop."

Loeschen has masterfully sketched this icon of modern Austin history. There are the ubiquitous signs advertising Schwinn bikes and Raleigh and Robin Hood models, too. The tiny building which sat near the sidewalk along Oakland Avenue West and displayed special models is there. The fire hydrant with a bike wheel on it. A kids bike parked near Helen’s flowers. A scooter and motor bike nearby. Russ’s pickup in the driveway. The shop windows hinting at the wonders of biking that awaited visitors inside.

It is a wondrous gift to the Godfredson family and now something for all to enjoy.

The man who is responsible for that special place in Austin’s hearts and minds is confined to his bed at the Albert Lea nursing home, so crippling is his Alzheimer’s disease.

Randy, his youngest son, still pedals his way around Austin on a bicycle; a living reincarnation of his flamboyant father.

Susan, the unofficial family historian, now carries the torch of the Godfredson family’s legacy in artist Loeschen’s sketch.

"I took one of the large prints that we had made for the family over to show Dad," Susan said. "He has Alzheimer’s, of course, and can’t understand or remember anything. He doesn’t even talk, but when I showed it to him, he grabbed it and hung on and there was that twinkle in his eyes again."

Call Lee Bonorden at 434-2232 or e-mail him at newsroom@austindailyherald.com.