Tech writer Lennard Zinn learns how the Hazel Park Cycle Center became the world’s leading bike tool maker.
- By VeloNews.com
- Published Mar. 30, 2009
Park Tool started in 1956 as Hazel Park Cycle Center, a bike shop on the northern edge of of the Twin Cities, adjacent a park of the same name. Owners Art Engstrom and Howard Hawkins fed themselves through the cold Minnesota winters by sharpening ice skates, and they built their own bike tools.
They made the original Park Repair Stand out of old parts, and they patented the clamp’s design. The base that held it steady was a huge artillery shell casing filled with concrete attached to metal clawed chair feet. The “Hazel Park Bicycle Repair Stand Company” was born.
As the bike shop grew, the two entrepreneurs opened a chain of Park Schwinn stores, dropping the “Hazel” now that the company’s reach extended far beyond the neighborhood of Hazel Park. They became some of Schwinn’s top dealers, and they began making tools that bore the Schwinn Approved brand — the same brand that launched Shimano in the USA.
In the early 1960s, Hawkins and Engstrom coined the Park Tool brand and built the tools in the back of Park Schwinn. By 1981, they had sold their three bike shops in order to concentrate on tool making. Park Schwinn was now under different ownership, but Park Tool continued to manufacture in the back of the shop until 1988.
It’s not just the blue-handled Park tools adorning bike shops that filled the company’s coffers. Park also invented and produced the plastic-coated bicycle storage hook, which is now universal. Park also has a motorcycle tool division, a lawn trimmer division (repair technicians hold the power equipment with Park stands), and now even sells barbecue tools.
With distribution all over the world and a tool for almost every bicycle application, Park may be the only tool company with the wherewithal to put on something as ambitious as the Park Tool Tech Summits the company launched last year in Philadelphia and Ontario, California. These are hands-on seminars for professional bicycle mechanics and in 2008 were attended by 406 dealers – 240 in Philadelphia and 166 in Ontario — from as far away as the Czech Republic. Eight manufacturers had clinics at the summit, and Park supplied all of the tools, repair stands and portable workbenches — five pallets of tools in all.
The summit was set up in a convention center and scheduled like high school classes, with 1st Period from 8:30 to 11:30am, 2nd Period from 12:15-3pm, and 3rd Period from 3:15-6PM. Each class had 30 people in it, except for Shimano’s classes, which had 190 people over the two days.
The other manufacturers were Campagnolo, SRAM, Hayes, Avid, RockShox, Fox, and, of course, Park. The classes go as slow as the slowest pupil, hence the limit to only professional mechanics.
Back at its St. Paul headquarters, Park has a relaxed work environment for its 35 employees. Most tool production is done in-house, and all design and prototyping is as well.
As a bonus for employees who like to enjoy the time they are not working, the company is closed Mondays. Suppliers to retailers probably could not get away with having a four-day work week, but a tool supplier that only sells in large quantities to distributors (not dealers) can.
Eric Hawkins, the son of the company co-founder, runs Park Tool now and still has time for his other passions, which include collecting vintage Schwinn bikes and riding motorcycles. The project motorcycle he is building incorporating Schwinn Stingray parts is truly a marvel.
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FILED UNDER: Bikes and Tech