Coco's Variety Store: Hans Ohrt, Beverly Hills

Recently, Danny traded in a beautiful Gitane mixte towards a tiny Miyata road bike for his son. In fact, the Gitane didn't make it onto Coco's long line of bikes as I kept it for myself. Totally original except for a Raleigh pillow saddle.

As Danny described it, I was prepared for a wonderful bike but was not expecting the most beautiful bike shop frame decal of all time.

Image: Julien's Auctions

As I have gathered so far, Hans was a professional racer, was the bicycle retailer to the stars, had rented a bicycle to Marilyn Monroe, was possibly the inventor of the bicycle helmet, may have been the last person to see Sharon Tate alive and was an early advocate of professional bicycles at a time when the US market was dominated by super heavy bicycles.

From John Jorgensen on the Classic Rendezvous mailing list:

Above the front door of Hans Ohrt was a bronze plaque:

"It is my notion that mankind would all be better mortals if they all rode bicycles"
-Hans Ohrt

Also, same source:

I don't know much of Hans's racing career, but he was the USA Olympic Cycling coach for quite a while.

Hans was quite astute at setting up direct importation of brands from Europe, Hopper, Bertin, Rene Herse for a wee bit, The Dura, Moulton (Alex), Bob Jackson all passed through.

One of the last significant orders from Bertin in the 70's was for a run of special frames to compete with Masi, they were of high standard in a flamboyant rust red (not as ordered) and made of 5/10 531 tubing, nice bikes but everyone wanted "Italian" then.

Don't confuse Hans Ohrt in Beverly Hills with Ernie Ohrt in San Francisco, related but not the same.

As is the case with Google, I have more questions generated than answered.

Did Hans Ohrt have a store in the Valley? Where was it?

Were there two stores in LA? One in Beverly Hills where the new Missoni is?

Family of Hans Ohrt? Are there any of these waterslide decals remaining in the world?

What is the relationship to Helen's?

Suffice to say, we are interested in buying any bicycle that has the Hans Ohrt bike shop sticker.

Know more? Contact us!