LONG BEACH, Calif. (BRAIN) — Edward Hickey was the kind of bike industry lifer who would travel to the Taipei trade show just to catch up with old friends and keep in touch with bike industry happenings.
Hickey, who died recently at 50 after fighting cancer for several years, was a veteran of several West Coast bike brands. He entered the industry as a teenager at Long Beach’s Jones Bicycles store, a job he got after completing a high school bike maintenance class.
Hickey worked in many areas of the industry, including retail, wholesale sales and product development.
“The bicycle industry was just really where he felt at home, in terms of the people he worked with. The people changed companies but the relationships continued,” Corrin Hickey told BRAIN. “The connection of a wholesaler to an independent bike shop — to him that was America, that was what America is all about, and the bike industry is one of the last places that exists.”
Like many ambitious Long Beach-area retail employees, Hickey soon joined local wholesaler Lawee, Inc., the distributor of Univega bikes. He later worked for GT, Electra and Phat.
Phat founder David Menahem first met Hickey at Lawee, and kept in touch, later hiring him at Phat, where he worked for 12 years.
“He really was a phenomenal guy, a great friend and father,” said Menahem. “And he knew so many dealers it wasn’t even funny.”
Menahem traveled to the Taipei show with Hickey in March. Corrin Hickey said her husband returned “revitalized by seeing all the people who love bicycles.”
Hickey had two children, Michael, 14, and Megan, 10. The family is planning a celebration of life party on August 27. Friends can contact Corrin Hickey through her Facebook page for details.
