ONEONTA -- Many of the bicycles sold here by Sport Tech will be pedaled this summer through area parks and along the wide shoulders of some highways. Others will be mounted to the backs of recreational vehicles by baseball visitors to the area and driven far away.

Most of them were first ridden on Water Street, an alleyway behind the store and near a municipal parking garage. A Chinese restaurant is a few doors down, and the smells of fried poultry often accompany these initial rides.

Sport Tech's salespeople are careful to explain a bike's features to potential customers, but they encourage patrons to pedal before they purchase.

"Quite often, it doesn't make a lick of sense to you until you throw a leg over a bike and you can figure out what we're talking about," said Ed Lorenz, one of the store's four owners. He's usually found downstairs, where new bicycles are displayed one above another in tall racks.

The bicycle department is open all year; two-wheelers are common Christmas gifts. Sales then slow during the poor retailing times of January and February, but climb again the following month.

As it does every March, spring fever brought dozens of bicyclists to the store. Some rolled in their bikes for servicing, and others were there to behold the newest models. The shopping expeditions had little to do with sky conditions above Oneonta.

"Even if it were snowing out there, people would still be in here looking at bikes," Lorenz said. "They want to get ready for when the weather breaks."

Bicycle customers are a mixture of locals, summer-home owners from downstate, and transients visiting the area for baseball-related activities.

Sport Tech, opened in 1984, is owned by Lorenz and his wife, Cameron, and another couple: Bob and Nancy Scanlon. Cameron Lorenz started here in 1986, but the others had worked at the same address for Jim Konstanty Sporting Goods. Konstanty was a former relief pitcher with the Phillies and Yankees, and the 1950 National League Most Valuable Player.

Eight years after Konstanty died, the three employees formed a corporation, purchased the business and changed its name to Sport Tech. Bicycles and bike servicing contribute a large portion of annual revenues.

Sport Tech also sells ski equipment, athletic shoes, casual and sports-related clothing, and awards. Last winter's ski season was a good one, according to the owners.

The layout of the store -- shoes and clothes on the Main Street level, bicycles, bike and ski servicing downstairs -- is unchanged from the Konstanty days, but Oneonta's retail environment is very different. Thirty years ago, shopping was concentrated here on Main, not the suburban strip of state Route 28 on the city's south side.

"Before, people were here anyway," said Ed Lorenz. "We had a lot of foot traffic going by. Now we have to give them a reason to come here to see us."

Sport Tech's owners and six employees work to attract patrons by giving a level of customer service they believe is beyond that provided by mass retailers. All the workers are physically active, use many of the store's products, and try to speak about the goods with knowledge gained from experience -- not sales manuals.

"We do sell pogo sticks," Lorenz said sardonically, "though we're not very good at that."

Demand for the store's bicycles has remained constant through the years, unlike the popularity of certain bike types.

In the 1970s, ten speeds and other narrow-tired road bikes were the only models stocked by Jim Konstanty Sporting Goods. The following decade, under Sport Tech, demand for off-road bikes -- whose knobby tires and suspensions allowed easier passage across tree roots and rocky pathways -- deflated sales of road models.

"We could've counted on one hand the number of road bikes we sold in a year," Lorenz recalled.

Customer tastes regarding bicycles, it seems, are similar to the cyclic movements of fashion. What's old can become new again: Road-bike sales began moving higher in 1999 and remain solid today.

Sport Tech also sells "cross bikes," hybrids which combine features of road and off-road bicycles. Their tires are wider than road bikes, but their suspensions are not as rugged as off-road models.

The staff and ownership have experienced little turnover in the last 20 years, and the people that work here are not surprised.

Sport Tech's goods are for recreation or competition or recognition, and this makes it easy for staffers to report for duty each day.

Ed Lorenz understands that when he's in an alley behind the city's old commercial district watching riders trying a new bike, listening to the clicking of changing gears and getting whiffs of General Tso's chicken, he's still working in the pleasure trade.

"We have a good time playing with what we have here," he said. "It's a part of the reason why it's been fun all these years. We do enjoy doing what we do."