CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Soon after they opened their art gallery on Cleveland's West Side, Jef Janis and his uncle, Kelvin Tate, knew they had a problem. No one was buying any art.

They had cleaned up some vintage bicycles and, on a whim, put them out front. With the air still warm in the tires, the bikes sold.

Suddenly, they were in the bicycle business. Or so they thought.

Young adults needing cheap transportation found their way to the shop on a downscale stretch of West 25th Street, much as the uncle-nephew team expected. They did not anticipate the parents, the fiftysomethings who gasped to see old-school Schwinns and Huffys and had to have one. Again.

Suddenly, they're in the nostalgia business. And the days are just packed.

Thanks largely to Baby Boomers reliving their youth, a year-old shop called Simpler Times Vintage Bicycle Gallery has become a twilight zone of bicycles of every age and model. And Janis and Tate, entrepreneurs deep into Plan B, marvel to witness the role a bicycle plays in growing up and growing old.

"What was five bikes last July is now 500," Janis observed as he walked through his inventory, which stretches past the gallery space and into the recesses of an old food terminal. "College kids buying a 10-speed make up about 20 percent of my business. The rest of it is people reliving a childhood."

Often, it's the child leading the parent down memory lane.

On a recent afternoon, Ellen Ivory of Euclid walked into the gallery trailing her son, Robert. The 28-year-old was seeking a new bike in time for that night's Critical Mass, a monthly muster of Cleveland cycling enthusiasts. He had heard of Simpler Times through Facebook friends.

Robert Ivory found what he wanted, a refurbished Schwinn 10-speed for $125.

"That's all Chicago-made steel," Janis said to mother and son, but Ellen Ivory was staring off into another era.

There, in a row of bikes against the wall, stood a pink and white art deco gem with balloon whitewall tires.

Ellen Ivory's hand went to her chest as she exhaled deeply.

"Oh, I love it!" she exclaimed. "Can I have a basket?"

Indeed.

While the 1952 Schwinn predates her childhood, it reminds her, she explained, of why she has been meaning to get back on a bicycle.

"Even now, when I see kids on bikes, I see just 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 gallery space, 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 Sting-Rays with chopper handle bars and brightly-colored banana seats.

There are English-made Raleighs and French-made Peugeots and even a bike made in China before retailers imported bikes from China. But most of the rides reflect the American manufacturing era of the 1950s, '60s and '70s, when people could buy bikes made by local craftsmen with local steel.

Tate, a practiced "picker" of vintage goods at garage and estate sales, looks admiringly at a Schwinn Paramount he says was handmade. The 54-year-old scoffs at today's imports sold at discount stores like Walmart.

"Those are good for a season. This bike," he said, pointing to an electric blue Murray built in Dayton in 1955, "the wheels have always been straight. This bike will last forever."

He's also fond of the Roadmasters and Camelbacks introduced by the Cleveland Welding Co. They're on display in the front window.

The selection draws the budget-conscious, the dreamers and the aficionados. All seem to bask at least briefly in nostalgia before remembering what they came for.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, Michael Polsinelli, a Shaker Heights chiropractor, stood near the center of the shop holding a silver bike frame lacking wheels.

"I'm a bike geek," he explained. "I came here asking, 'Do you have a Viscount frame?' Fifteen minutes later, I'm holding one in my hand. I love this place."

Moving through on a second visit was Mario Owens, 54, of Cleveland. He had brought his eight-year-old daughter, Marshay, whom he promised a bike like one he rode as a child.

It was hard to tell who was more enthused by that idea.

Owens stopped in front of a clutch of tank bikes and cruisers with fatty boy seats and began to reminisce aloud.

"All you needed was a screwdriver and a pair of pliers to fix it," he said. "We used to switch the handlebars. Put straws in the spokes."

Marshay's gaze was drawn to a bright orange chopper in the front window.

"That's old school," her father whistled approvingly.

Not far away, James Frey, 49, was sizing up a Sting-Ray. He wore a neck brace and said he had come in for practical transportation. But the first bike he ever bought was a Sting-Ray with a stick shift and a sissy bar on the back, just like the one he was looking at. He was 11, maybe 12.

"I guess it was extra special because I paid for half," he explained. His parents, as part of the deal, paid for the other half.

Few people can reunite with their first love. But your first cool bike? There it was.

Frey grew pensive. Janis sauntered past. Seemingly reading his customer's mind, he cheerfully asked the question of the moment: "Do you listen to your inner adult, or your inner child?"

Simpler Times is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday at 3212 West 25th St., south of Clark Avenue; 216-925-2008