As a pupil at St Kevin’s College, in Oamaru, Pat Conn (now 61) got a puncture one day riding his bicycle to school.
He never had a brand new bike growing up. Instead, his father Alf Conn, who had owned the Thames Highway cycle shop Victor Nelson Oamaru since 1947, gave his three boys reconditioned, "painted up" bikes to ride.
"I brought it home and I remember ringing Dad up and saying, ‘I got a puncture’,’’ Mr Conn says.‘‘And he said, ‘That’s all right, I’ll bring you home a repair kit. You know how to fix it.
"I’m not going to do it for you. I do it all day ... you do it yourself.’
"So, if I wanted to bike to school the next day, ‘Get out and fix it’."
Mr Conn now owns Victor Nelson Cycles and he has been fixing bikes and selling them in Oamaru for more than four decades. He has sold bicycles to three generations of some families in the small town that has now gone cycle mad.
And he remains as busy as ever over the summer.
During the Christmas period he works up to 75 hours a week in the shop by himself, fixing bikes up for locals and visitors.
Once he had "had a gutsful" of school, Mr Conn left and soon after joined his father at the shop full-time.
"That was 1972.
"I actually got my first new bike when I started working. I bought it myself."
It was a mid-1970s World Rider frame that Mr Conn custom-made for himself.
"I actually know the joker who bought it off me. I wish I’d never sold it to him."
The cycle shop was not always in its current location; when his father bought the business from Victor Nelson (who once owned cycle shops in Mosgiel, Dunedin, Oamaru and Timaru) the shop was two doors up from where it is now, in a building now occupied by a beauty salon.
But when his mother, Val, died, Mr Conn bought her shares and with his father as a partner bought the building two doors down.
They moved into a place that was "twice the size".
"But yeah," he said.
"Could do with bigger now, but that’s the way, I suppose. You just grow with it."
In 1998, his father retired, but by that stage Mr Conn had bought most of his father’s shares anyway. Over the years, he had seen the clientele change.
"Years ago, every morning, I would see 400 kids biking past here going to school — and now you don’t see it.
"Kids are not doing a lot of miles, they’re not riding to school.
"It’s just a different kettle of fish that people are into."
Children were active in the new learn-to-ride bike park at Friendly Bay, there were plans for a BMX track at the old landfill site on South Hill, and mountain biking on Cape Wanbrow was popular.
Cycling also had changed over the years.
"I remember when front suspension came out. I was here with Dad, and I said, ‘This will never last; it’s only a flash in the pan. Give it two years and it’ll be gone.’
"Now look at it. I was totally wrong with that one. Totally wrong. But it is a changing industry."
It was more common to sell a bike to an adult these days, someone who had "refound their youth, I suppose you could say".
"They remember what it was like, some of them, who used to have a single-speed and bike to school, and that was it. And now they can’t believe how easy the new bikes are to ride, how beautifully they change gears, and stuff like that."
And with the number of cyclists now coming through Oamaru, people assume he "must be making a fortune on bikes", but that was not the case.
"There’s a big saying in the cycle trade," Mr Conn said.
"If you want to become a millionaire in the cycle trade, start with $2 million."
Mr Conn said he was more of a "bike shop guy" than a "bike guy" and a big reason he still enjoyed work as much as he did was because of the people he saw in his shop.
"At Christmas-time, for instance, I had four customers come in and give me Christmas presents," he said.
"That certainly puts a tingle in your smile."
And the support the small town showed him when his wife, Trudy, was dying was heartwarming.
"My wife passed away in 2000 with cancer and I was very, very lucky that I had some great mates and friends and people I knew ... all rallied around and they came and the ladies, especially, they looked after the shop for us when I was running up and down from Dunedin.
"That probably carried on for three years.
"The ladies would come in for a day, or two days, or three days, or whatever, and looked after the shop and stuff like that for us. Just people that you know and they wanted to help.
"A couple of husbands would come in and do a puncture [repair] and stuff like that in their lunchtime.
"And the whole community knew what was going on and so there wasn’t a hassle if a job couldn’t be done ‘now’.
"If it were two days, or a day, then so be it. And that’s how it was."
It was a tough time, he said, "running up and down from Dunedin" and he could have walked away from the shop after Trudy died.
But his three stepchildren, Trudy’s children, were at secondary school at the time and they were the reason he did not.
Nowadays, a worn but perfectly clean mat at the entrance reads "welcome" and while many of the people who walk into the shop are familiar faces, as the town grows and becomes busier, many more are new.
And one thing newcomers remark upon, especially people from the city, Mr Conn said, was the place was not "absolutely sterile".
"They walk in here and they can smell the rubber. And see things.
"They can’t get over how this place still looks like a bike shop."
