pure freedom," she said.

Turning to her bemused son, she added, "I want to get out with you and ride."

As she left, she hugged Janis, who says that happens a lot.

He's an amiable 39-year-old with silver hoop earrings and a sudden, happy laugh. If there's an extra snap in his step of late, it's because he no longer suffers stomach ulcers he attributed to stress.

He left those stressful days far behind.

An underwriter by trade, Janis worked at the Farmers Insurance offices in Independence, where, he said, "I sat in a cubicle and died a little every day."

With his wife, Tia, he hatched his escape. She manages the Menchie's Frozen Yogurt shop at Westgate Mall, not far from the couple's home in the Westpark neighborhood of Cleveland.

They leased the galleryspace, and Janis and Tate, a lifelong father figure, hung the drawings and photographs they had collected.

When the bike angle bloomed, Janis saw not only a business but a crusade. He had always loved bicycles. His uncle, a mechanically inclined millwright, had taught him how to repair and refurbish them.

With used bikes, he knew he could cater to an under-served market, the people who cannot afford brand new. Cooler still, he could get his customers thinking young again.

"My goal is to get people riding bikes," but not only for exercise, Janis says. "I want you to embrace that inner child."

The selection spans about a century and whims and fads of unimaginable contrast. There's a half dozen sturdy, steel-framed bicycles built for British mail carriers, not far from 1960s