I would imagine that there's a considerable need for bicycle repair men in china. Maybe these days there are more cars on the road, a lot more than in 1991 when I took this photo, but bicycles are still in high demand.
I don't know if any form of commerce license was needed to set up shop but it looks as though these two just picked a place on the street. I wondered where they worked when it rained. Maybe still here.
They've a reasonable range of spares hanging on the rope slung between the two trees; everything from inner tubes and tires to saddles and sprockets. They even have replacement saddle springs!
There's also a range of what look like used parts laid out on the sidewalk – like the box of mechanical nik-naks that yard-sellers place out to keep the men engaged allowing the women to browse for longer, looking for the real treasures.
Curiously, the two bikes in the foreground both seem to have some form of number plate suspended from the saddle springs. Maybe this was just a way to help the owners identify their particular bikes when parked among a million others. Maybe it was something else.
I also find it interesting that the makers name on the saddle of the bike on the left is in English letters and not chinese characters.
Of course, no post on bicycle repair men can be complete without the link to the famous Monty Python Sketch.
