Pedaling Putnam to Pelham

   A couple of weeks ago I drove to Pelham, New York, a pretty little town about 14 miles northeast of midtown Manhattan, to drop off the purple Vitus (photos at bottom of page) that I had swapped out for my friend Jordan. A long time ago, I planned a ride from Brewster, New York, which lies not far from the Connecticut border near Danbury, back to Manhattan following the Putnam, North County and South County Trailways.

   I noticed that Jordan lived not far from Metro North’s Harlem line, and I figured that setting off from his place would save a good chunk of time, since I could eliminate the street riding required to reach the train from my original planned starting point at the George Washington Bridge. Jordan’s home was also only five miles from my end point on the trail, just north of Van Cortlandt Park in Yonkers, which was half the distance back to the bridge!

   I had given Jordan a target time between 9:30-10:00, and I got up really early in the morning in order to avoid as much rush hour traffic as possible. I was flying along until I reached Morristown, NJ, when I-287 became a bit of a parking lot. Luckily, it was just a local issue, and when things cleared after a frustrating half hour, I reached the GWB a relatively short time afterward.

   The bridge is always slow on and off, but I was soon at Jordan’s door, and only a handful of minutes later than planned. After unloading his bike and parts, I stopped in for a short visit and to see his collection. I’ve worked on many of his bikes, but he had a couple, including a sweet Bottecchia from the 1980s, painted in black and white for the Malvor pro team, and a really cool mid-2000s Look KG 381 bicycle painted for the Credit Agricole team.

   After a quick change, I was pedaling the quick 2½ miles to the Mount Vernon West station. Purchasing a ticket was easy, considering how many times I’ve seen machines in other languages during my travels abroad. I had heard that a one-time $5 purchase of a bicycle permit was required on trains, but the conductor never asked me about it. In fact, he was a very helpful and friendly guy who had a suggestion where to sit, out of the way with my bicycle (I had the Cannondale with me) and where to stand on the platform when I had to transfer at White Plains.

   I had the added fun of “collecting” a couple dozen train stations (another hobby of mine) during my trip, some along this active, former New York Central line, and even a few that still sit along the defunct Putnam Line (also New York Central) that the trails would follow. I now have nearly 650 stations on my list that I have visited/photographed across the country!

   The trip was rather typical urban to suburban scenery until we reached the area north of Katonah, when the tracks weaved through some of the lovely hills and reservoirs that dominate the border of West Chester and Putnam counties. My total train ride was about an hour and twenty-five minutes when I pushed my bike onto the platform at the neat Tudor-style station at Brewster.

  

   The Putnam Trailway terminus is just north of town at the appropriately-named Putnam Avenue, and it was obvious this was a brand-new section with fresh cycling logos and directional markers painted onto the surface. Although the overall topography of the route isn’t flat, most of the trail is railroad grade, so it certainly isn’t difficult riding. However, the first few miles included some areas with more abrupt changes in elevation that required a little pedaling effort – perhaps where bridges or fills once crossed these small valleys and have since been removed.

   Although the trail condition was still decent, its “newness” went away as I skirted the Middle Branch Reservoir, heading toward Carmel Hamlet. The scenery certainly made up for the lack of immaculate pavement!

   I soon passed Lake Mahopac which was once a thriving resort area until highway development made automobile travel more convenient. The community evolved into a permanent settlement as the Taconic State and Sawmill River Parkways handled (what once was) an easy commute into New York City.

   I was now in some areas of deep woods where the trail saw little maintenance. Sections saw a good amount of upheaving from tree roots, maybe not as bad as the Henry Hudson Trail was, but the dappled light coming through the trees made those obstacles hard to spot. I had to stay focused, as my road bike didn’t provide a lot of cushioning when I hit a particularly bad crack.

   There were also a few rock cuts that had become frequent waterways, judging by the small creeks flowing through from recent rain and the heavy erosion to both sides of the pavement. Some of these cuts never receive a lot of light and had a good coating of damp moss, and I was very careful riding over these sections!

   At about the 17-mile mark, I reached Yorktown Heights, where a park, pool and playground all featured nicely at trailside. In the center of town, a restored train station also sat nearby.

   A few miles later, I reached a steel truss bridge crossing the New Croton Reservoir. Although the wooden surface appeared dry, the planks were waterlogged. I laughed as they made a squishy noise under my wheels, and water actually shot up at me through the nail holes!

   I was soon in the hamlet of Millwood, where the trail was on-road for about three miles, some of it actually in the traffic lanes of NY Route 100, but a good portion was in an extra-wide shoulder, separated from autos by a beefy guardrail. The paving was in decent shape, but I’m not sure if it will see any more maintenance than the road, and I’m thinking most of the salt and winter piles will pushed into that area. As it was, there was a good amount of runoff debris in the shoulder from the recent rains.

   As NY-100 came to an end, the trail swung off into the woods a bit to parallel NY-9A on its west side. Eventually the Taconic Parkway also merged into this corridor, but despite the road noise of the speeding cars, this was really a pleasant section of trail, though there were still some damp areas under the heavy foliage.

   Thirty-two miles into the ride, I was back in Westchester County and in familiar territory, retracing the North County Trailway that I had ridden with Sue during our Sleepy Hollow-Croton Aqueduct trip in August of 2016. A segment of the trail just above the town of Elmsford had been newly completed, and I liked the way it followed the winding contours of the Sawmill River.

   By the way, I have to laugh at what some states call a river. The Sawmill was maybe half the width of our Perkiomen Creek! Pennsylvania doesn’t mess around – take a look at a list, and you’ll find only major waterways. When they call it a river, it’s actually a RIVER.

   The high of riding on the new section came crashing down quickly as I soon hit the worst portion of the trail so far. The washboard texture here was something I’ve experienced before when the paving is laid directly over the railroad ties that are still in the ground. They eventually decay and the asphalt sinks into the spaces left behind.

   I wasn’t sure if I just didn’t remember it being this bad or if I was underestimating how much the condition could deteriorate in a couple of years. I was riding my trail bike last time out here, so the extra cushioning from the fatter tires could also be influencing my recollection of the previous experience.

   My hands, arms and shoulders were taking a beating over the next four miles or so, but the conditions flipped around completely for the remainder of the ride. A particularly smooth section of tarmac on a gently-curving climb above the community of Nepperhan in Yonkers provided me with a burst of enthusiasm, and I hit a bit of a groove, spinning along effortlessly for a couple miles.

   At just about the 47-mile mark, I exited the South County Trail onto Alan B. Shepard, Jr. Place and took on a nasty climb to the east, 180 feet up McLean Avenue. I remembered this hill from the ride with Sue, but it seemed worse this time around – maybe because there was no one cursing behind me to lighten the mood.

   The easy handful of miles across Yonkers and Mt. Vernon provided a nice “cool down spin”, and I followed Nereid and Pitman Avenues onto Samford Boulevard, to reach my car back in Pelham. I had managed to get out of there before peak rush hour - which is more like four hours in NYC - so the traffic wasn’t too terrible, and I had packed in a small cooler a delicious (driving-friendly) meal to enjoy on the way home.

...and finally, Jordan's Vitus 979:

City Cycling 6: University City and West Philadelphia

   The section of West Philadelphia is on land purchased from local Indians in 1677 by William Warner. Originally used for farming, the area expanded in population and property development once a permanent bridge was built over the Schuylkill in 1805.

   During the mid-1800s, wealthy Philadelphians built estates and summer homes here, and the western suburb was incorporated into the city in 1854. The University of Pennsylvania moved to West Philadelphia from Ninth and Chestnut Streets in the 1870s, and growth took off in the area.

   The section known as University City now also includes Drexel University, founded in 1891, and the University of the Sciences, which was established during 1821 as the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy in Carpenter’s Hall. The southern edge of University City is home to an amazing network of nationally-recognized hospital facilities, including those of the University of Pennsylvania and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, somewhat awkwardly known as CHOP.

   I started my tour heading west across the Schuylkill on Walnut Street, and I could see 30th Street Station off to the right. I soon passed the WXPN studio and the World Café Live, a venue where I have seen many concerts over the years. I ducked under the trestle built by the Pennsylvania Railroad, which now hosts Norfolk Southern freight trains heading across the “High Line” to bypass crossings with city streets.

   Immediately on my left was the Class of 1923 Arena, a rink that has been home to college and high school hockey since 1970. I made a left on 34th and spotted the Fisher Fine Arts Library, a spectacular red sandstone, brick and terracotta structure designed by Frank Furness and completed in 1890. The building is also home to the Arthur Ross Gallery, the University of Pennsylvania’s official art gallery.

   The next structure on the right was Irvine Auditorium, home of the world’s largest university-owned pipe organ! The design of the 1928 building, said to have been inspired by the Mont-Saint-Michel monastery on the coast of France, was from the firm of Horace Trumbauer. His chief architect, Julian Abele, was the first African-American graduate of Penn’s School of Architecture in 1902.

  

   I made a left on Spruce Street and stopped on the far corner at the Penn Museum. I love the overview photo below of the beautiful structure, as I think that, if not for the modern hospital buildings in the background, someone might think they were mistakenly dropped in Tuscany.

   Wilson Eyre led an association of Penn architects in designing the incredible museum (opened in 1899), which is one of the world’s leading institutions of archaeological study. The halls contain fine collections of objects from ancient Egypt, Persia, Mesopotamia, Greece, China, South America and Middle America.

   I couldn’t help feeling some type of old world, Colosseum-type connection as continuing north on 33rd, I immediately reached Franklin Field.

   The impressive brick structure is the NCAA’s oldest operating football stadium, hosting University of Pennsylvania games, and from 1958 to 1970, the stadium was home of the NFL’s Eagles. I’ve been fortunate to attend a few events at Franklin Field over the years, including a U.S. national team soccer game against Russia and the Penn Relays, a famous multi-day track meet featuring (local, national and a few international) high schools, college and world-class Olympic athletes!

   Right out front of the stadium is a statue of Benjamin Franklin in 1723, a work depicting a young man arriving in the city, full of ideas and hope. Franklin founded the University of Pennsylvania in 1740, along with numerous other institutions.

   Continuing north, I passed the Palestra, often called the Cathedral of College Basketball. The arena has hosted more NCAA men’s regular season and postseason games, and more NCAA tournaments than any other U.S. venue. However, the last tournament game there was in 1984, and because it holds under 9,000 people, it is doubtful another will ever be held there.

   The Palestra is the official home of the Penn men’s and women’s teams, but it regularly hosts matchups between Philadelphia’s Big Five (Penn, Villanova, St. Joe’s, LaSalle and Temple). At the time of its completion in 1927, it was one of the largest arenas in the world. It was one of the first steel and concrete arenas in the U.S. and one of the first without view-blocking interior pillars.

   I want to quickly mention the large brick building across the street, which houses Penn’s School of Engineering, as it was the birthplace of ENIAC, the world’s first computer. Much of its final construction of 80 feet long, 30 tons and 18,000 vacuum tubes is now in the Smithsonian, but part of the machine is still on display here.

   I made a left on Walnut and a right on 36th Street to reach the Institute of Contemporary Art, the city’s premier contemporary museum with ever-changing exhibits of new artists. I headed back south on 36th, which becomes a pedestrian-only path, and then made a right on Hamilton Walk to visit the Richards Medical Research Laboratories, built in 1962.

   Architect Louis Kahn created what is considered one of the most influential buildings of the post-World War II era. Kahn, who had joined the Penn faculty in 1957, received international acclaim for his design, which featured a broken roofline of brick towers between concrete piers. This distinct visual effect is repeated in several buildings around campus.

   I had intended to cross Hamilton Walk and visit Penn’s Main Quadrangle. I had read the handsome Gothic-style dormitory buildings surrounding the grassy yard provided a feeling very reminiscent of the great European universities. Unfortunately, my 18-year-old Inquirer guidebook didn’t predict that our ever-increasingly security-conscious society would eliminate that idea. The area now has card-activated gates that only allow for the passage of students.

   Instead, I rode out to 40th Street and headed left across the Septa Trolley Portal to arrive at the Woodlands. The cemetery here is on the grounds of a mansion built in 1793 by William Hamilton, grand-nephew of Alexander Hamilton. There are some incredible monuments and statuary along the grounds’ winding lane, and a few well-known people, such as artists Thomas Eakins and Rembrandt Peale, pioneering surgeon Samuel David Gross, as well as Drexel University founder Anthony Joseph Drexel, are buried here.

   I then pedaled out Woodland Avenue and zigzagged down through some industrial areas that had seen better days on 49th Street and Grays Avenue. At the end of 51st Street I passed under the steel railroad truss bridge onto the bicycle trail that leads into Bartram’s Garden.

   America’s oldest surviving botanical garden really is an oasis among some of the crumbling manufacturing plants and active petrochemical industry on the surrounding land! The 45-acre National Historic Landmark contains the 18th-century farmhouse, barn and outbuildings of John Bartram, a gardener genius who served as Royal Botanist for America to King George III. Visitors can enjoy the fruits of his labors, strolling down walkways through lovely flower beds past historic trees, a wildflower meadow and wetlands.

   Construction is ongoing to better connect the Dupont/Grays Ferry Crescent Trails on the Schuylkill’s east bank to the west. As it exists, the trail across the Grays Ferry Avenue bridge, actually marked as part of the current East Coast Greenway bike route, is in really sorry shape. The lane separated from traffic by a concrete barrier has a deteriorating surface with a good amount of debris/garbage to test your bike handling.

   Reaching the Schuylkill Banks Boardwalk, maybe the most attractive section of trail in the area, really was a complete 180-degree turn visually, and it provided me with a morale boost for the ride back home!

Keeping Physically and Mentally (?) Fit

   I’m determined to clear out the majority of my finished bicycles before moving onto some of the projects that have been in limbo for a while. The shop rafters are pretty full, and I'm frustrated by having to lean bicycles around the walls - it doesn't look great, and I don't want to worry about knocking something over accidentally. I am still trying to find a few reasonably-priced parts for those bikes “in waiting”, so delaying the builds is not that much of an issue anyway.

   I have been doing plenty of riding in the meantime, including the previously-mentioned route in the Brandywine Creek area just north of Kennett Square, PA. The course featured a balanced mix of asphalt and gravel roads with an up and down profile providing nearly 4000 feet of climbing in only 60 miles. There was very little time to recover at all in between the hills! It was supposed to be an organized group ride, but the scheduled day ended up being windy and rainy, so I took on the route by myself on a beautiful afternoon a couple days later.

   Another NYC-area cycling adventure is in the works, this time starting in Brewster, near the Connecticut border, and following the Putnam, North County and South County Trailways back to the George Washington Bridge. I also have three more of my Philadelphia tour rides to complete this month.

   As usual, I have had a fair amount of springtime repair and tune-up work, and I have also had a couple of custom builds come into my shop. My friend Jordan made a return visit with a red Vitus 979 that we had built together in my shop last November. He found that the 58 cm frame was too large and had bought a purple replacement onto which he wanted me to swap the parts, with a couple of changes.

   The majority of the components are Shimano Dura-Ace, but unlike me, Jordan has no problem mixing brands and/or equipment of different eras. He had a set of lesser-quality SunRace brake/shifters, and bought a set of Shimano Sora levers to replace them. He has requested installation of an FSA carbon crankset instead of the vintage Dura-Ace version he had on the red Vitus.

   He had also found a carbon fork with a 1" steering tube, and was hoping to go to a threadless headset, but the tube had been cut for a shorter head tube and didn't leave enough room to safely attach the stem. He asked me to purchase a quill adapter with which he could use the shorter threadless stem, providing him a more comfortable reach.

   The two frames he dropped off were actually from different model years, as the purple 979 had the slightly more modern grub screw at the seat post mount, as in the left photo below, instead of a more conventional split seat tube lug with a through-bolt on the right.

   The previous owner had taken the bolt out completely and didn't thread it back in correctly, as you could tell that it was not straight visually and it wouldn’t rotate freely. The steel screw had simply cut its new path through the existing hole in the softer aluminum lug. I told Jordan we had little alternative but to tighten it as best I we could, as the chances of stripping the bolt or damaging the aluminum lug would be pretty high if we tried to force it out.

   I had Jordan take a saddle height measurement from what he considered his most comfortable bike, so that we could set this seatpost in the correct position for him and not have to make any further adjustments after it would be locked it in place. I used a pipe on the end of the Allen wrench so that I could get good leverage to twist the grub screw in tightly.

   A gentleman named Tom brought an intriguing Univega mixte build project into my shop the other day. Iraqi immigrant Ben Lawee started the Univega company during the 1970s bike boom in order to design and import bicycles initially manufactured by Italian brand Italvega and Japanese maker Miyata.

   Tom’s frameset has a raw steel finish, and he provided a wild mix of parts to go on it, including a set of 650c wheels with fat tires and a set of carbon riser bars with 9-speed trigger shifters for an upright cockpit arrangement. The really new twist for me was the inclusion of a SunTour Superbe front derailleur with, what the company called, an “endless band” mount.

   The mounting hardware had the appearance of that included on a set of brake/shift levers, but I immediately thought, “I understand how to slip the band onto a set of drop bars, but how do you put this onto a seat post. There was no obvious way to open the ends of the band without prying the metal completely out of shape, either.

   I turned to the ‘net for help, first with a visit to Velobase.com to see if more details could be found on this vintage part and then to a couple bicycle forums to check if someone else posted for some help for this puzzler. In the only discussion I could find, someone informed another confused cyclist that there was either a slotted or Philips-head end on the stud, and it could be backed out of its base. The two ends of the band could then easily pop apart.

It seems that every day I’m learning about technological advances in cycling, but every so often a vintage part will teach me a little lesson of its own!