Originally Posted by
VegasTriker
... It is interesting you brought up the Yellow Jersey bike shop. I know they had this tool because I used it when I worked in the shop when it first opened as a bike co-op in Madison in the early 1970s. There is one person who was still with the store through the three locations it occupied. His name is Andy Muzi and when the bike shop changed from a co-op to a regular store he became the CO of the organization. He knows a heck of a lot about old bikes and would be a good person to contact with questions you may have.
I moved to Madison in 1988, am largely clueless about bike shop history before that date. I used to buy spokes at Yellow Jersey, they had a spoke cutter so I could bring in my rim, hub, tell them how many cross and they would cut my spokes for me. Cost less than buying spokes at any other store. And they did the measurements and calculations to figure out what length I needed too.
But they moved, so starting with a bike I built up in 2013, I had to do the measurements, buy spokes on line, etc.
They were a bit hit and miss for quality a bit over a decade ago. I had foot surgery. I was saving up projects to do while off my feet, one project was building up a set of wheels for my folder. Bought the spokes from them ahead of time. While immobilized, I started to build the wheels and that is when I learned that their mechanic was not very careful at what he was doing, the threading on almost all the spokes was not good enough to thread nipples onto them. I was really angry at them for that. When I was semi-mobile later had to go to the store, on crutches, to get them to do it right.
But, if you need parts for an old bike, I would still highly recommend them as they might have them.