CYCLE TECH ROFO: City Cycling 2: Christmas Spirit Ride

Sue and I have just returned from "Ride With Santa", our annual nighttime cycling event, and this year everyone had bikes decked out in lights. More importantly, everyone dressed warmly (unlike last year) to better survive the quickly-dropping temps - it was 30 degrees when we finished, definite frozen water bottle weather!

Five of us set off from our house in Royersford and rode a few miles on the streets to the Perkiomen Trail-head in Rahns. We then circled back via the connection with the Schuylkill River Trail in Oaks. At our leisurely, conversational pace, our fingers and toes were getting numb enough that we actually welcomed the climb out of Phoenixville to get the blood pumping!

Spots on the trails were still a bit wet from rains a couple days ago, and some of the puddles were icing over. Everyone was cautious, all had a great time, and many enthusiastic comments about doing it again next Christmas were heard!

I didn’t really expect to make a second trip into Philadelphia so soon, but about a week ago I was presented with another beautiful late-autumn day, and my focal point of this ride was going to be some of the city’s Christmas traditions. I couldn’t be sure how many nice days I would get before the arrival of the holidays.

I realized that I could actually combine two of the walks in The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Guide to Historic Philadelphia, since I had already visited many of the sites included in the “Around City Hall” and “Benjamin Franklin Parkway” routes. This would allow me to devote more time to my key destination, the John Wanamaker (now Macy’s) department store for the Christmas light show and Dickens Village.

The Ben Franklin Parkway is lined with many museums that I have visited with my family, including the Philadelphia Art Museum, which is at the north end of the Parkway on Eakins Oval (named after the city’s most famous artist), and the Franklin Institute, Academy of Natural Sciences and Please Touch Museum, all located around Logan Circle (named for William Penn’s secretary James Logan).

The circle itself is home to a beautiful fountain designed by Alexander Stirling Calder, who is the son of Alexander Milne Calder, the sculptor of City Hall’s William Penn statue. The fountain depicts figures representing Philadelphia’s three major waterways, the Schuylkill, Delaware River and Wissahickon Creek.

There is actually a wealth of sculpture and statuary along the parkway, including a Rodin museum and memorials to Copernicus and Shakespeare. In a grassy park across from the entrance of the Franklin Institute is a memorial commemorating the contributions of African American soldiers and sailors who fought in all U.S. wars. Nearby, like bookends on both sides of the parkway, are two memorials honoring soldiers and sailors of the Civil War.

Most visitors are familiar with the iconic Love sculpture by Robert Indiana at the far end of the parkway at JFK Plaza, but just across 15th Street, on the square surrounding the Municipal Services Building is a really cool installation by Daniel Martinez, Renee Petropoulis and Roger White called “Your Move”. You can wander among giant dominoes, checkers, chess pieces, bingo chips, Monopoly and Sorry markers.

A couple of other interesting structures line the parkway, including the Free Library of Philadelphia, an immense Greek Revival structure with a Rare Book Room that contains ancient cuneiform tablets, illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages and first editions of Charles Dickens. The collection also includes manuscripts of Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder in the Rue Morgue and “The Raven”.

The Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul is an Italian Renaissance structure with a design formed during the city’s anti-Catholic riots of 1844. Completed in 1864, its copper dome and imposing sandstone exterior dominate Logan Circle.

Too bad about the hotel backdrop!

Years ago, as part of a homeschooling lesson for my sons, we did an architectural tour of Philadelphia which included a visit to the French-influenced, mansard-roofed City Hall, the largest structure of its kind in the country. We had the opportunity to ride the elevator to the tower for a spectacular panoramic view of the city and its surroundings. Of course, topping the tower is the 36-foot, 8-inch “Billy” Penn statue, the largest single piece of sculpture on any building in the world!

Just north on Broad Street is the Masonic Temple, which I remember the boys giving a “Whoa!” when they saw one of the most ornate and visually striking buildings in the city. The architectural jewel, with its spires and turrets, cost more than $1.6 million, an incredible sum at the time. A bit of trivia: the trowel used to lay the cornerstone on the U.S. Capitol was used on the temple cornerstone in 1868. I don’t have enough time to devote to a description of its seven halls, representing Egyptian, Ionic, Corinthian, Oriental, Italian Renaissance, Gothic and Norman styles - each richly adorned. The temple is well worth a tour, but here is a page with some photos of the interior.

We had also visited the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, a building that is a piece of art itself, designed by Frank Furness and George Hewitt. Opened in 1876, the academy is home to paintings, sculpture and drawings by area artists, such as Thomas Eakins, Benjamin West, William Rush and Andrew Wyeth, whose work is known around the world.

My main goal was the Wanamaker holiday display, and I had packed some jeans and sneakers to slide on over my cycling tights, so I would look/feel more in place with the other visitors when I walked in. Later on, Sue would be surprised to hear that I actually dared to leave one of my bikes locked up on the Philadelphia streets, but I parked it strategically near a busy entrance of the Reading Terminal Market so that it would be in constant public view. I was only leaving it there for less than a half hour, and I was also banking somewhat on my late-1970s Flandria not being as much of target for the average city bike thief.

I always enjoy seeing the store decorated for Christmas and the huge “Magic Tree” with its thousands of bulbs that change too many colors to count! The famous light show runs every two hours, but I’ve seen the somewhat corny production so many times, I didn’t feel the need to see it again.

I was a bit disappointed that I had arrived mid-day, so I wouldn’t have the opportunity to hear the store’s centerpiece, the Wanamaker Organ. Built for the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904, the instrument is played after the noon and 6:00 light shows. With over 28,000 pipes, it is the largest operational organ in the world!

Each floor of the store has about a 20-foot ceiling, so the escalators are LONG rides up to the Dickens Village, where the story of A Christmas Carol is told with animated statues, music, some narration and hand-painted signs. A large portion of the store’s third floor is transformed into a mini-version of Victorian Camden Town.

The Cratchit family's Christmas dinner scene

Quickly back into my cycling attire, I headed south down Broad Street, past the Academy of Music, where I have seen a few Philadelphia Orchestra concerts and, a few years ago, a performance of “Spamalot” with my family. The gorgeous 1857 structure is the oldest concert hall and opera house in the country.

The Academy of Music outside...

...and in

I passed the University of the Arts and then turned left to find the narrow Camac Street, known as “The Street of Little Clubs”. The lane is host to the Philadelphia Sketch Club (established in 1860, it is the oldest professional artist organization in the country), the Charlotte Cushman Club (the 1907 organization, which provided a home for travelling actresses on tour, closed in 1999), the Plastic Club (begun in 1897, it serves as the oldest women’s art club in America) and the Franklin Inn Club (a private literary club founded in 1902).

I learned later, upon my return home, that Camac Street was once paved with wooden blocks, apparently due to complaints from the clubs about the noise made by carriages on the previous surface of granite blocks. Unfortunately, the wood didn’t stand up well to the weather, and, although the wood was re-laid as recently as 2012, it was eventually paved over. Efforts are underway to restore a 30-foot section in the 200 block of the street – it’s just a matter of perfecting the plan, regarding what type of wood and/or what kind of weatherproofing treatment to apply in order to make the surface last.

Check out the intersecting street name...ooh, so close!

I’ve been on a bit of a hiatus with projects, as I would like to clear out most of the finished bicycles I have in stock before starting new builds. I am piecing together the Look KG 231 a little bit at a time, with the majority of the parts being Campagnolo Chorus.

There have been a couple visitors to my shop, one mostly to share plans for build(s), and another to actually swap out some parts on a new bicycle. A friend plans to stop in during the next few weeks to put together a cyclocross bike – for a while I’ve had the frame and most of the parts stored here in anticipation.

A gentleman named Dan called me a couple of months ago to get some advice about purchasing an Italian racing frame. I sent him some ideas, and he was immediately drawn to an early-1990s Colnago Superissimo that had the paint scheme of the Italian Ariostea cycling team. I suggested he make a slightly lower offer on it, and the seller accepted.

When Dan came over to drop off the frameset and discuss plans for the build, he was a bit surprised to find that I had nearly everything he needed. I don’t usually have a lot of parts in stock, but I had recently found a Campagnolo Chorus 8-speed group and had set it aside for the future. I occasionally have some bars around, and I was able to provide a Cinelli Giro d’Italia set that had an XA stem already attached. I also had a Italian Fir wheelset that had black rims with red and yellow decals – it seems they were destined for this bike!

It was an extremely short turnaround for this project: