The Sage of New Hampshire Peter White has built a solid business in the North Country woods dispensing wisdom and dynamo hubs Story and photos by Dan D’Ambrosio eter White wasn’t allowed to ride a bike until he was 12 years old. Then he took possession of a used Raleigh three-speed a Pneighbor in Boston gave him. “That bike was quickly stolen from the back yard, but not before I had the oppor- tunity to pull apart the rear hub and try to figure out how it worked,” White said in a recent conversation in his shop — Peter map in 1998. automobile, you take its lights for granted. White Cycles — in the woods off a dirt Schmidt’s Original Nabendynamo You get in the car, turn on a switch, and road near Hillsborough, New Hampshire. (SON), is built to a highly polished finish drive on down the road with the light you With pinion gears, ball bearings, and in Tubingen, Germany, and offers “at least need. With the SON, you can take quality springs spread on his driveway, the young 50,000 kilometers of trouble-free riding lighting on your bicycle for granted just as White vainly tried to put back together between servicings,” according to White’s you do in a car, making your bicycle just what he had torn apart. website. It also powers Schmidt’s own hal- as convenient to use for everyday trans- “I didn’t get it back together,” White ogen and LED headlights and taillights, portation as an automobile but without said. “We had to go to the local bike shop or one of White’s other line of lights from the environmental degradation. Who to do that.” Busch & Müller (Meinerzhagen, Germa- knows, you may even decide that you no In the intervening years, White has ny), Supernova (Gundelfingen, Germany), longer require an automobile,” he said. serviced many internally geared hubs. or Spanninga from France, which he de- White’s website does not dazzle with “Every time I pulled one apart, I had scribes as more budget oriented. “When its presentation, but it is a very deep well the manual open, proceeding step-by- your bicycle can make its own light, it of information on lighting, fitting a bike, step, and laughing at what I had done becomes a reliable means of transpor- and more, including a treatise on why he in 1966 in my driveway, which made my tation, not just a toy or plaything for an switched from DT to Wheelsmith spokes. father so angry,” he said. afternoon’s entertainment or exercise,” White sells Schmidt hubs and his var- White’s father notwithstanding, the White wrote on his website. “With an ious lines of lights both retail and whole- boy who exhibited such curiosity about sale, which can lead to grumbling by some the internal workings of a Sturmey- shop owners. Archer three-speed hub grew into a “Because I’m the U.S. distributor, some 59-year-old man who has carved out a dealers think we shouldn’t be selling re- unique niche in the world of cycling as tail, but I know those shops aren’t provid- perhaps the country’s leading expert on ing the kind of information for customers bike lights. White is also a consummate that we do here,” White said. “If you look wheel builder and the North American at the pages on my website describing distributor for German engineering lights, then look at every other website wonders, including the Schmidt Dynamo on Earth dealing with bicycle lights, they front hub that put his business on the don’t have as much information com- 38 ADVENTURE CYCLIST OCTOBER /NOVEMBER 2013 bined as I do,” he added. really thought about it beyond that.” Bicycle lighting is a “huge market With a steady paycheck a thing of the spread out relatively thinly,” White said, past, White, an inveterate cross-country with the exceptions of Portland and skier, picked up a few extra dollars as an in- Seattle, the twin West Coast bicycling structor at a ski-touring center in Weston, meccas. Massachusetts, run by a former colleague “There are still vast areas of the coun- at Lincoln Guide Service. He also took a try where there aren’t bike shops, and part-time job at a film-processing com- most shops don’t want to stock this stuff,” pany run by one of his bike customers in White continued. “All of our promotion is Needham, Massachusetts, working there toward the bike shops. When you look at some nights to “fill in the gaps.” my Schmidt hub page and scroll down to- three-speed hub. “Otherwise it was a question of ‘Do I ward the bottom, there’s a section ‘Where “When I was at Lincoln Guide Service, have peanut butter and jelly for dinner do I buy?’ with a whole list of bike shops so many times I’d be there until 10:30 or tonight or just peanut butter?’” White separated by state, city, and Canadian 11:00 at night, just playing around with said. “Even with very low overhead, it was province, hundreds of them.” stuff, trying different chains with differ- tough.” ent derailleurs and different brands of White first distinguished himself by Strictly transportation freewheels. I was trying to understand offering a lifetime guarantee for spoke White didn’t get a driver’s license until why some shifted better than others, and breakage and truing on his wheels. 1979 when he was 25 years old, and even very slowly moving the chain through “No one else had done that,” he said. then he didn’t do much driving. In high and seeing what happened to the chain as “To me, it’s no big deal. If you build the school, he rode his bike rather than take it picked up the teeth,” White said. wheel properly, it will never go out of true the train, even though his route to school One more lesson White received was unless you whack it.” took him past the “horrible stench” of a on the shortcomings of the bike industry White began to dabble in framebuild- chicken processing plant in South Boston. as it existed in the U.S. in the late 1970s ing after a short apprenticeship with “That was the world I knew,” White into the 1980s. Glenn Swan, a framebuilder in Ithaca, said. “Riding a bike was much better than “When I got started in the bike New York. In his early framebuilding riding a train. Trains were incredibly loud business, if you wanted a rear rack to days, he told customers not to expect in those days. There was no sound insu- carry stuff, there was one option called a too much, and that if anything broke, he lation. Your ears would be ringing when Pletscher rack,” White said. “It had these would fix it. you got off the train.” two little struts pivoted on rivets with When he was a teenager, White saw his no structural integrity. It was good for bike primarily as transportation. carrying a sweatshirt. If you wanted to do “I never went for a ride just for the a long-distance tour, that’s all you had. In sake of going for a ride,” he said. Europe there were better racks.” That changed when the family moved to Natick, Massachusetts, in 1974, and Peter White Cycles is born White started riding just for the pleasure White left Lincoln Guide Service of it every weekend, through the scenic in 1985 to make better money selling rolling hills around Dover, Concord, and stereos at a local department store called Acton. Eventually he took a job at a bike Lechmere. shop in Lincoln, Massachusetts, called “The money was good, but it was a Lincoln Guide Service. terrible place to work,” White said. “One of them did,” White said. “The “I met some bike racers and joined After three years, in 1988, White had downtube came loose from the bottom the local racing club where I pretended saved up enough money to launch his bracket shell. I fixed it. I think he’s still to bike race,” White said. “I could never business in the basement of his rented riding it.” keep up with them. They were very polite home in Acton, Massachusetts. He placed about it. I got this job at Lincoln Guide an order for some parts with a distributor Everything changes Service, a very good shop at the time that in Cornish, Maine, who knew White from In 1996, White’s business received a doesn’t exist any more.” his days at Lincoln Guide Service. boost from an unexpected source. His For eight years at Lincoln Guide “He basically did me a favor, but he wife Linda was fed up with living in the Service, White learned the bike business, had to have a name to sell to. It had to rented house in Acton so the couple perfecting his craft of wheel building and be a business name so he just made it began looking for a house to buy. They becoming known among the racing com- Peter White Cycles,” White remembered. found one they liked about a mile away munity for his true, steady, and durable “So I get this invoice and it says Peter from the rental. wheels. He also continued to exhibit the White Cycles. I said, ‘Oh, okay,’ and when “We moved the sign for the business mechanical curiosity he had first shown I decided to actually go full-time, I said, and put a couple of notices in the Charles as a 12-year-old boy cracking open a ‘Alright, I’m Peter White Cycles.’ I never River Wheelmen Bulletin,” White said.