Finding a Bike Store

When I lived in Holland before leaving for the U.S., until 1988, I had a nice shop in Amsterdam. Cycles Brands (Javastraat) was a serious place where racers got their stuff. They were professional and courteous there, but as a beginning cyclist I also felt a little as if I had to earn my way in. I don't think I ever did (thinking of the cyclist I was back then, there were many, many things I still had to learn), but the memory of the kind of store it was (apparently they closed in 2002) has stayed with me. Since returning last year I have been to a few nice shops, but none that really made me feel I had found a replacement. But today on the Eendracht team ride, several guys needed to pick something up at a shop in the town of Soest (about 15 miles to the south and east of where I live in Nederhorst den Berg, in the opposite direction of Amsterdam), and now I may have resolved this particular little resettlement puzzle. (When you move to a new place, initially nothing is routine, you need to figure eveything out, from the best way to get to work, to stores, doctors--everything, and it's tiring. Once you have figured it out, you don't even realize this once was work, but this figuring-out stuff really does take energy). Hommes Wielersport is a small place (still--they're moving to a bigger place in the near future) and it's all about racing bikes, good ones. It is not, as one of the guys said on the way home, a clothing store with bikes, and neither is it a general bicycle store where they sell your average family utility bike. None of that stuff. They do have some clothing, but it's the good stuff. They build wheels, they sell their own frames (and a few other good brands)--they even sell glue for sew ups! I think that was the clincher (no pun intended), me just casually asking if perhaps he had glue, and then getting a choice of a jar (Continental, with brush--but too much for my purposes) or tube (Vittoria--just right). Hans Voorn runs the place now, and I'm wondering if he wasn't in that Masters crit I did over here seven years ago next week (the Ronde van Wijk bij Duurstede, where I only lasted seven laps and where the eventual winner was--he lapped me at least three times--former pro Johnny Broers). I'll look that up, and meanwhile consider myself a new customer at Hommes. I don't even have to hope if they'll have me, because Hans was extremely nice and welcoming. (I do look a hell of a lot sharper than twenty-some years ago, I have to say, with my Colnago, shaved legs, sew ups, and what have you).