When Vince Hanoski walked into the nondescript warehouse on the main drag in La Crescenta, California around noon on a sunny mid-August day, he had an incomplete idea of what he might find there. The third-generation owner of Milwaukee, Wisconsin bike shop and institution Ben’s Cycle was there to pick up a bunch of bike parts he’d bought, more or less sight unseen, from a business that was closing.
But this was no ordinary inventory liquidation. The parts belonged to Euro-Asia Imports (EAI), a wholesale distributor that, over its decades in the bicycle business, had acquired something of a legendary reputation for its stock of exotic and vintage parts. Hanoski is a practiced hand at buying big-batch inventories, and was well-acquainted with EAI, which he’d done business with for decades.
“I had [even] been out there before,” Hanoski said, when saddle brand Brooks was consolidating its distributors. “We purchased probably a quarter million (dollars) in Brooks saddles, like a semi-truck full of stuff.” But that was a limited, brand-specific deal; he hadn’t set foot in Euro-Asia’s overstuffed space in at least 12 years, and the stock he was buying now dwarfed the Brooks deal.
The EAI warehouse was not disorderly. But it was filled with stacks of components, frames, and accessories and was one of three that Hanoski and his small crew of four had to pack up and ship home, quickly – a trucking company was on the way. He knew there would be loads of parts, ranging from the clearly desirable vintage gear (Campagnolo Nuovo Record) to stuff that was simply … old.
EAI was also at the center of the fixed-gear boom that started in the 2000s, blending bike messenger culture and Japanese Keirin equipment, so EAI also had exotic track framesets, MKS pedals and related parts and accessories. There was touring equipment. EAI kept a significant stock of small parts across road, track and touring gear. And there were stacks of rims: everything from classic Ambrosio hoops to colorful deep-section models for the fixie crowd. “We knew a great deal of what we were getting, but we were also absolutely flabbergasted by the stuff we didn’t expect to get,” said Alex Zacher, general manager of Ben’s Cycle. “And then there was just the volume of it.”
The fast-paced, nearly frantic process of boxing it all up left little time to examine the goods in much detail to find out what, exactly, was in the haul, but an early find was an auspicious omen. “The Delta brakes were a surprise,” Hanoski said with understatement.
That would be Campagnolo’s legendary C-Record Delta brakes, the distinctive triangular design that Campagnolo made for just seven years (the design sucked so bad Bicycling magazine called it the worst brake ever made, but the swoon-worthy shape is prized by collectors). You can find used Deltas on resale sites like eBay. But new old stock (NOS) complete brakesets, in original packaging? So rare they sell for US$1,000 and up. It was an unmistakable sign: EAI’s inventory was worth its legend.
In the universe of wholesale distributors, Euro-Asia cut a higher profile than its size alone would suggest; it was not a business on the scale of well-known operations like BTI and J&B, or Minneapolis-based giant Quality Bicycle Products, which has hundreds of employees and lists practically every bike shop in the United States as a client.
But what EAI lacked in size it made up for in mystique. Zacher said that while working in shops over the years, in moments of free time on slow days, he’d invariably flip through distributors’ catalogs. “And EAI was always the one I gravitated towards, because they just had stuff no one else did,” he said.
Kyle Kelley, co-owner of Los Angeles shop Allez LA and formerly Golden Saddle Cyclery, is a veteran of the industry through three shops. "When Euro-Asia became so big because of the track bike boom, a lot of these kids didn't even know what Euro-Asia had (in its warehouse), until they fell in love with cycling and discovered the heritage," he said. "And then, 10 years later, people figure out, 'Oh my god, they still have [Cinelli] Unicantor saddles. They have full Campy tool sets.'"
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