PIRU : Bicyclists Grab Some Air at Grocery Store

The town of Piru has no bicycle repair shop, but any resident who owns a bike can tell visitors what to do if tires need air. Visit Sanchez Grocery and ask to use the bicycle pump.

Proprietor Jimmy Sanchez or assistant John Avila will lend the pump to anyone who asks--provided the bicycle owner says please.

Sanchez, 41, said he bought his first community bicycle pump about 20 years ago, when an automobile garage on Center Street closed down. With the nearest service station a mile away on California 126, Sanchez guessed that there would be a need for the pump.

Since then, the Piru native has lost track of how many replacement pumps he has purchased with money from the “penny pot” he keeps on the counter of the 45-year-old business inherited from his father.

“The pump gets pretty heavy use,” Sanchez said. “Even the more expensive ones never last more than a few months.”

Cyclists, ranging in age from kindergartners to senior citizens, regularly use the informal filling station. When the market is not too busy, employers instruct new users, but Sanchez said small girls will sometimes neglect to ask how to use the bicycle pump. “So they wait till some customer gets out of the car and ask him to show them what to do,” he said.

Other youngsters are more confident and pump away with abandon--sometimes until the tires blow up. “You don’t like to laugh,” Sanchez said, “but what an expression on their faces when that happens.”

Sanchez said he provides a dual service for the community. Besides keeping Piru tires plump, he reinforces good manners. “It doesn’t matter if they say please or por favor, they have to be polite,” he said. “I think I’m teaching kids something if I tell them they can’t use the pump if they don’t say please.”

Some of the adults who stop in to top off their tires learned the magic word as children, borrowing Sanchez’s pump.

And some young cyclists say please several times a day. “We sell kits to patch the tires, but some kids don’t want to fix a flat,” Avila said. “They just keep coming back and filling up the tire.”

Between patrons and pumpers, there are hectic moments at Sanchez Grocery, but the staff wouldn’t have it any other way. “Little kids are great,” Sanchez said.

His favorite to date is the boy who pulled up in front of the store on his bicycle, let all the air out of both tires and asked to use the pump. When a puzzled Sanchez asked the boy why he had just given himself two flat tires, “He told me, ‘You’ve got to change the air in the tires every time--you don’t get flats that way.’ ”