Oh, Canada!

It has been quite a while since I last posted, but quite frankly, not a lot has been going on. Nothing too exciting or challenging had been coming into my shop lately, except the usual tune-ups and repairs. My posting schedule will get a bump, however, as Sue and I are heading up to Canada for an extended vacation, including Montreal, where we will be able to view the cycling World Championship race next Sunday.
   We were disappointed that Tadej Pogacar crashed out of the Vuelta a España and will be unable to defend his world title, but there will be plenty of stars on hand. Plenty has been said about the chances of Remco Evenapoel, Wout van Aert and even Isaac del Toro, but why has Mathieu van der Poel talk been practically non-existant?
   As if the Dutch superstar had also noticed, he went off on a 174 kilometer SOLO breakaway during today's final stage of the Tour of Luxembourg and won! I don't know what everybody else has been watching this season, but the last thing anyone should do is count out MvdP in a one-day race!

   Our stay in "La Métropole" will include some rides, as the provincial hub has a very bike-friendly reputation, and we even plan to do a lap or two around the Gilles Villeneuve F1 racing circuit, which is open to cyclist most of the year. We also plan to absorb the French-Canadian culture by taking in a museum or two, experiencing a (French-spoken) mass at the Notre-Dame Basilica (attending the service avoids the entrance fee!) and having a meal at the humourously-named,"Poutineville"! I was also hoping to attend a Canadiens hockey game, but tickets are stupidly expensive, even for a preseason matchup. I found out that the matchup on the schedule is actually a "split squad" contest, with half (which half?) of the team playing in Ottawa! Uh...pass.
   We'll move onto Quebec City, which I have been looking forward to visiting for a while. The old part of the city is split by a cliff into lower (Baisse-ville) and higher (Haute-ville) levels, connected by a staircase and the Funiculare (inclined railway). From what I've seen over the years on TV, etc., Quebec seems like the closest thing to being in Europe, without having to leave North America! You know cheapskates like us will be avoiding the tourist traps, but there are plenty of sites to see, even from a distance, like Montmorency Falls, the Citadelle and the Hotel Frontenac.

   On the way back towards Pennsylvania, we'll have a bit more rural accommodations on Grand Island, Vermont, where we'll be able to ride the 13.4-mile Island Line Trail, which includes the spectacular Lake Champlain Causeway. There is a actually a 200-foot gap in the causeway, known as "The Cut", that requires a bike ferry!

   Our trip will wrap up with an overnight stay with my cousin Sharon in Portland, Connecticut, which is about 15 miles south of Hartford. My aunt and uncle recently moved close by, and I haven't seen all of them since 2021, so it will be a great Larimer mini-reunion.

   Before starting to pack up for the trip I was able to finish half of a long-term project that I started early this summer. It mostly involved swapping out parts from two of my friend Brendan's bicycles. One was a 1991 Bianchi Proto, constructed of Columbus Max tubing, and I'll get to that one at a later date. The other was a 1990 Eddy Merckx Corsa Extra in 7-Eleven team colors, and I'm a bit jealous of its beautiful condition, since the one I picked up last summer is requiring some repair/repaint.

   Brendan had asked me to swap the mixed Campagnolo group from the the Merckx with the Shimano Dura-Ace that came on the Bianchi. He then decided to look for some delta brakes and a C-Record rear derailleur for the Proto rebuild, so that build has come along more slowly, but here are some photos of the Corsa Extra:

Down At (or To, By, Near, Along...) the Shore*

*I refuse to acknowledge the stupid, "Philly-esque" prepositionless phrase to describe going to the beach. Actually, being surrounded by well-educated people in my life, I rarely hear the grammar-deficient expression being used, other than by local weathercasters who think it's cute, when in reality, it makes the speaker sound like he/she didn't finish elementary school!

   The Larimers/Darleys/Lehrs were gathering this weekend for our annual Family Fest in Stone Harbor, NJ. It used to be "Seafood Fest", but we've come to realize the work/cost involved in preparation for the event was getting out of hand, as our family was expanding. I always felt particularly bad for my sister-in-law's husband, Todd, who would be tending a boiling cauldron of clams, crab, lobster, scallops, shrimp (my favorite), potatoes and corn for hours. Like me, the poor guy starts to perspire at the mere thought of humidity and/or temps in the 80s, and these cooking conditions pushed WAY beyond anything tolerable...and he was pretty much waiting until everyone else was served before he was really able to enjoy the results of his labor!

   It was decided that ordering pizza would become the dinner plan, still not cheap for sixteen people, but much better than seafood prices! ...and the efforts to put everything together - other than determining toppings and slapping together something on a store-bought, gluten-free crust for my sorry ass - were nearly elininated. As much as our gang enjoyed the former marine menu, it has always been the time together, and not what we were jamming in our mouths, that was the focus of the weekend!

   People might be amazed how well we get along, but it really helps that we are mostly the type of people who do everything to avoid conflict, plus the fact that we've known each other (and our respective quirks) for so much time. Mind you, there is plenty of good-natured teasing, but it is seldom pushed to extremes, and the giver quickly becomes the receiver to dispel the tension. Call it common ground that there is something about each of us that "isn't quite right"!

   This autumn marks forty years that Sue and I have been together, and for all but a couple of those years, at a point when I considered myself a "hockey player who keeps in shape with cycling" in the summer, before switching to a "cyclist who keeps in shape with hockey" during the winter, I have had a bicycle with me down AT the shore. Mind you, I do enjoy my time pedaling around the flat terrain, as well as the ocean and bay views I'm able to take in along the way, but with the regular mileage I put in, the routes can get rather repetitive down here.

   A cyclist is very exposed when riding at the shore - with very little tree cover, the sun is constantly beating on you. The winds, especially when they are blowing in off of the ocean, can be extremely difficult to deal with, and the humidity can turn rides into a sweat-drippy mess. Add to that the poor quality of the weatherbeaten asphalt on some of the roads down here, and people who understand my cycling mania also "get it" when I'm not as enthusiastic about extended stays at the shore than would be expected from normal humans.

   One of my favorite routes, and it is actually a fairly new one, is to head south out the Ocean Drive causeway across Grassy Sound. Anglesea Drive is a nice ride through its namessake neighborhood of North Wildwood, then I take Central Avenue (a much less-trafficked route than parallel New Jersey Ave.), which heads southwest, paralleling the beach. There is a dogleg onto Pacific Avenue into the busier area of Wildwood proper, but it isn't awful, then there is a bike lane most of the way into Wildwood Crest.

   Unfortunately the road surface quality deteriorates out over the chain of islands to Cape May, and there are some tight squeezes on the low bridges and main draw (photo above) over the Middle Thorofare of the Intracoastal Waterway. Traffic is reasonably light through here during the midday hours when I usually ride, but you still need to keep an eye out for nutjobs abruptly turning into the various restaurants and marinas along the way, as well as occasional trucks entering and leaving the area around the old Bumblebee Tuna plant.

   Routes 109 and 9 can be a little hectic out towards the Cape May/Lewes ferry terminal, but it is a short enough stretch not to be too much of a bother, and most of the way there is a fairly wide shoulder on which to ride. My absolute favorite place to cycle is along Shore Road in North Cape May, out towards Wildwood Highlands. Traffic is light, the road is flat with a pefect asphalt surface, and there is a nice view across Delaware Bay.

   A short dogleg reaches Clubhouse/Bay Drive, and another longer one connects with Bayshore Road out to Del Haven. From there I zigzag on back roads through wooded neighborhoods to Whitesboro, where I can take the Middle Township Trail up to Cape May Courthouse to reach the causeway for the return to Stone Harbor, or if I want a longer ride, keep on the trail up to Swainton, then head out to Avalon and back.

Pedaling the Pennypack

   There have been a couple of instances when a photo that I've seen has inspired me to investigate a trail, and in this case, it was a shot (on the right) of a house incredibly close to the tracks near the former location of the Huntingdon Valley railroad station. The image, probably from the mid-1970s, shows an RDC (rail diesel car) on the Reading Railroad's Newtown Branch (later SEPTA) that was abandoned beyond Fox Chase in 1983. Montgomery County leased the corridor for $1, and in 2009 opened the first section of trail.

   The Pennypack Trail actually has two distinct segments, the lower part that runs from Pine Road, just inside the city border with Montgomery County, southeast a little over ten miles to the creek's outlet at the Delaware River. The other segment, connected by a gravel path through Lorimer (oh, so close) Park, heads north from Rockledge Park about six miles to County Line Road. The path continues another 2.5 miles as the Newtown Trail to its current terminus at Bristol Road in Southampton.
   The Philadelphia portion of the Pennypack has a very different flavor, as it winds through dense forest, winding along its namessake creek. I had parked at the trailhead off Pine Road and was immediately surprised by a bridge that was closed, so I had to walk across the creek on some rocks. Riding my 'cross bike, I was wearing my rugged Mavic shoes, so I had plenty of grip, but the creek was very low, so I could've easily used my bike down in the shallow water for stability, if needed.
   Although the temps weren't as bad as last week, it was a bit humid, and the thick tree canopy and creekside conditions made the riding feel even more "sticky". The paved path winds considerably and has occasional short, punchy climbs - nothing too challenging, but you do have to be concious of encountering occasional walkers (as one should always be) that impede progress up- and downhill.

   I had done the ride out to the Delaware River decades ago, so I ditched the trail at Torresdale Road, made a right onto Rhawn Street and pedaled five miles out to Fox Chase. Here I met an extension of about a half mile (actually posted as the Fox Chase Lorimer Trail) to the nothern section of the Pennypack. This path had a totally different feel - besides having a gravel surface, it had the somewhat typical rail-trail design, up on a well-engineered railroad grade. There was a lot more open air (less humidity!) and the fills, rock cuts and bridges kept the trail at a very level grade. A bunch of railroad remnants, such as old signals and electrical relay boxes were still along the right of way.

 

   About three miles from Fox Chase, I crossed Welsh Road and found that house that once sat right by the tracks (now gone). Many folks have imagined what it was like to live so close to trains rumbling by every day, but I'd argue that you probably wouldn't live there if you didn't enjoy railroads. Sadly, the tracks and trains will probably never return!

   A short distance later, I reached the Bryn Athyn railroad station, which is now a post office:

   When I eventually reached the Newtown Trail, I added a new station to the "collection" of those I've visited across the country (now numbering 728), when I passed the structure at Southampton:

   Prefering not to backtrack over the same route, I instead took to the streets to make my way back to Bryn Athyn. I was nearly regretting my decision completely, as the roads were heavily trafficked with not much of a shoulder and had more of an up and down profile than my now-weary legs would have preferred. However, my choice was justified after catching a glimpse of the fantastic Bryn Athyn Cathedral:

   From there, the return to my car was rather uneventful, though I will say that the gravel path from Lorimer Park over to the Pine Road trailhead could use some improvement. No real stress for someone who has gone off-road as much as me, but the casual cyclist on a hybrid would want to be cautious.

   By the way, if you are looking for somewhere new to ride, check out the Trail Tales link in the right-hand column for some great destination ideas, most of which are a day trip from the Philadelphia area! ...and if you have leftover patriotic spirit from the nation's 250th birthday, take a look at the City Cycling: Historic Philadelphia section.

Italian Melodrama

   It seems so appropriate, now that the Giro d'Italia has come to a close, and The Orange Menace is now offending Italian politicians that I mention the curious story behind the latest project I completed for my friend Brendan. The beautiful Medici trecolori frame that he dropped off had me looking into the history of the company, as it had been one with which I was rather unfamiliar.
   The simple story is that Medici was a spin-off from the Masi USA company, but there was far more going on behind the scenes. Master framebuilder Mario Confente, who was brought to America by the legendary Faliero Masi to start up his new California-based venture, grew anxious to produce bicycles bearing his own name, formed a close friendship with Jim Cunningham, who was a frame painter in the Masi shop and eventually went on to found CyclArt.

   Needing funds for their company, the two connected with New Jersey businessman Bill Recht, who proved to be a bit shady in his dealings. When it became clear that Recht was using Confente's name to promote a line of lesser-quality bicycles, the Italian submitted a letter of resignation. Things broke down so badly, Confente and Cunningham were locked out of the Medici factory, blocking them access to their own tools!

   You can read more about Confente and his work HERE, courtesy of a couple articles by Russ Howe, and you can delve into the complications surrounding the Medici company HERE, via emails shared by Jim Cunningham and Medici employee Brian Bayless. Details of what unfolded are a bit mixed when comparing the stories from each man, but it is clear, despite their laid-back, apologetic natures, these guys did not get along!

   The sad part of the story is that Confente enjoyed a very short time with his name adorning custom-built frames, as he died at the age of 34 from heart disease. 

   Although Brendan's bike does not have a Confente frame, it is a quality mid-1980s product built of Tange Prestige tubing. My friend did not let my Euro-snobbery affect his decision to have me assemble the bike with an early Shimano 600 groupset. Note that Brendan even came up with an aero water bottle with Medici lettering!

   Just as an aside, I've only ever had the opportunity to work with one CyclArt-painted frame, a Team Lemond Pro bicycle, about seven years ago. Jim Cunningham's company was absorbed by the Arkansas-based HIA Velo, but you can see some of his beautiful work HERE on Flickr.

   I visited with Brendan last week to drop off his Medici and also provide a bit of service to his collection of bicycles. I ended up coming away with two more bicycles to work on, an Eddy Merckx 7-Eleven bike similar to the one I recently acquired, but in a condition that puts mine to shame, and an '80s Bianchi. The goal will be to swap the Campagnolo and Dura-Ace parts between the two, but more on that later...

Ladies and gentleman, introducing...

..."Velos Classiques" rentals of vintage racing bicycles! Click the link in the right-hand column for details.

   With the paved Schuylkill Trail just a few blocks from my house, and with an obvious hole in bike rental choices for road-worthy machines at local shops, the idea occurred to me that the bicycles that have been hanging in my rafters for a long time could be put to use. I also realized that, until we pull out of this prolonged, post-COVID bicycle industry funk, it would be great to find another way to get my build projects out into the public eye.

   A couple of years ago a gentleman from San Francisco contacted me regarding prospective rentals. Thomas was visiting his mother in nearby Limerick and wished to take a ride into Philadelphia on the trail. I told him that I didn't have any paperwork in place, but I had been considering making bikes available, and doing so shouldn't be very difficult.

   I invited him over to the shop to talk about the prospect and to take a look at what I had available. A late-1980s green and white Scapin I had in stock really appealed to him, and he asked at what price I was currently listing the bike. The dollar amount must have been right, because his plan became buying the bike so that he could leave it at his mother's place so that he would always have something to ride when he visited in the future.

   Ideally something similar would happen, but keeping the bikes clean and in top-quality operation will be a priority, anyway. I considered that, if necessary, replacing some bar tape and/or tires are small steps to again take one of these used bicycles to the final level of "sale condition" a customer might prefer.

   Certainly my first though is toward someone vacationing in the area, but if someone wanted to use a bike for a ride event featuring vintage machines or if they just wanted to give one of these cool historic bicycles a try, they would be more than welcome to rent from Cycle Tech!   

   I completed the assembly of the Tommasini Racing Strada bicycle the other day and took it out for some photos before listing it. I had purchased the bike from a connection I had made with a guy in New Jersey who also did some restoration builds for resale. The Tommasini was Steve's racing bike back-in-the-day, and it has a few nicks and "patina" that you can expect from a well-used machine, but he took reasonably good care of it, and maybe most-importantly, it was never crashed!

   I left the U.S. Cycling Federation sticker Steve had applied to the seat tube and the Mavic decals he had put on the fork legs. They could be easily removed if a buyer wished to do so!

   The frame came with a cool set of Tommasini-engraved Campagnolo Nuovo Record shift levers, as well as a headset and bottom bracket from that gruppo. Steve also included a set of classic Cinelli Giro d'Italia bars and a 1A stem. I collected the rest of the components to complete the Nuovo Record group, and added a set of wheels from my stock, built from Mavic MA40 rims and a beautiful set of Campagnolo Croce d'Aune hubs.

These People Are Effin' Crazy

   The way the world has been going since that kook took over last January, I'm not telling you something you don't already know, but the title here is specifically referring to drivers in Philadelphia. This blog entry has a definite cars and bikes theme!

   Yesterday I took a drive into the city to drop off the Merckx 7-Eleven frame for a bit of work. I thought I'd take the opportunity to revisit the Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum, which lies in the Eastwick area in southeast Philadelphia. I am not only a "gearhead" with bicycles, but also a bit of the combution engine-type, as I am a regular watcher of the Hagerty automotive channel online and also occasionally catch their sportscar features on You Tube. My wrenching abilities are strictly bicycle-related at this point, but I'm learning. I'm not really too much into watching autoracing, though the 24 Hours of Le Mans definitely intrigues me.

   The Simeone collection of vintage racecars is fantastic, and it is wonderfully presented in themed displays, such as a replica of a Tuscany village, celebrating the famous "Mille Miglia", a 1000-mile race from Brescia to Rome and back. The Le Mans pit area display particularly appeals to me, as it features some of my all-time favorite cars, such as the 1963 Ferrari 250P, which actually won that year's 24-hour event. This car was driven to victory by Italian stars Lorenzo Bandini and Ludovico Scarfiotti, finishing an amazing 16 laps ahead of the others!

   The Ford GT40 was the featured car model in the 2019 movie, Ford v. Ferrari. Althought the American automobile famously finished 1-2-3 at the 1966 Le Mans race, this particular vehicle unfortunately developed clutch problems after five hours and was retired from the competition:

   By the way, area libraries have an excellent program for free passes to many of the area museums. In this case, the Phoenixville Library hooked me up with entry for four individuals, as well as a discount of 10% at the gift shop. I didn't buy anything, but there were plenty of cool things one could purchase as a memento.

    Having brought along the Saeco-Cannondale in the back of my Honda Fit, I had planned to use Fairmount Park as a starting point for a ride. After wandering through the museum for a couple of hours, I changed into my cycling gear and set off back towards the city. Setting off from the East Falls area, my route would eventually work into Northeast Philadelphia, using mostly streets with marked bike lanes or "sharrows" (shared-lane markings) for at least a ruse of safety.

   I say this because I noted that there were a particularly high number of numbskulls driving this day. In the past I've seen plenty of area motorists pushing the envelope of what is legal when driving through red lights, but on this occasion I was following someone who clearly thought obeying traffic lights was optional. I saw him slowly lurch forward into an intersection, as if anticipating it was going to change, but just continue through, even when it didn't! I actually caught up to him after a couple of blocks, when a few cars in front of him blocked the opportunity to repeat his actions.

   The street had parked cars on the right, so it was too narrow for the driver to go around the cars, which were turning left in front of him, so it took a couple more blocks for him to catch back up with me. The light we were approaching had just turned red, so I knew it was definitely not a matter of anticipating the light change when he slowly crawled right through the intersection and continued on his way. For safety, I've always waited an extra beat or two, in case someone runs a light, but this dude was just absurd!

   I pedaled down the excellent bike lane along the Delaware waterfront, then cut across Society Hill on Spruce Street. Despite the wide, well-marked green bike lane making it obvious to drivers that the pavement is being shared, I had someone attempt to make a lefthand turn in front of me. Luckily he had his window down, and my yells of "YO, BUDDY!" had him slamming on his brakes before he could completely cut me off. Unfortunately this wasn't going to be my last head-shaking moment during this trip.

   I eventually reached the (temporary) safety of the Schuylkill Banks section of the SRT, where I found myself retracing one of my favorite routes, on the new bridge connection to Grays Ferry Crescent park and eventually over through West Philadelphia to Bala Cynwyd. The one snag in this route is an awkward dogleg from 48th Street, east on Girard Avenue to reach Belmont Avenue.

   Mind you, all of these streets have marked bike lanes, but the intersection at Belmont is made complicated by trolley tracks and boarding platforms. The track (laid in pavement) beside the platforms was marked for traffic as a left turn only lane for cars, though I've been here before and seen people confused or just ignoring the signs overhead marking the lanes and turn this section of Girard into a four lane street. I've made a little diagram of the situation (click on it to enlarge, if needed), showing the platforms, marked with a white square and the letter P. I am represented by the red star, showing I was in front of four cars (differently-colored diamonds) at the left turn lane, waiting for the vehicles to clear (green arrows showing the traffic flow east to west on Girard) so that I can turn north onto Belmont.

   What happened next was mind-boggling! The driver in the orange car in the oncoming turn lane became impatient waiting for the blue car to turn, went around him, straight at me, then swerved back into the westbound traffic. Moments later, perhaps inspired by his impatient orange counterpart, the maroon car swerved into the oncoming track around the three cars in front of him and simply cut off the cars the rest of us were (safely) waiting to clear.

   After much braking and honking, a black female woman driving a cab (logically, the yellow diamond) pulled slowly alongside me and rolled down her window to speak. I imagine she saw my head pivoting to watch all of this nonsense develop and then my head shaking in disbelief, but she obviously had a bit of concern for my safety, as well. "These people are f#@&*ing crazy! I got you hon," she said, then slowly nosed out to stop the traffic so we could both turn left and get the hell outta there!

   The completely road-separated bike lanes of Parkside and (eventually) the Cynwyd Heritage Trail couldn't have been more welcome!

   

   

My Favorite Part of the Job

   During social gatherings, a question often comes to me in the form of "What do you do?", and I can usually get by with the simple answer, "I have a home bicycle shop business." If the person is interested, I'll explain that I'd really describe myself as a builder of custom vintage (and some modern) bicycles, but that the repair/tune-up part of the business is far more consistent.
   The post-COVID bicycle bust was really discouraging, as the bulk of the customer work kept moving away from my favorite part of the job, which has always been searching for new bicycle build projects, collecting the needed parts and putting everything together. The sale of these bikes led to visits from prospective buyers who shared the same passion for vintage bikes. I also didn't mind occasionally delivering my finished products, since I would also put one of my own bicycles in the car and plan a ride in the area where I was headed.

   Understandably, I was excited to make a couple of sales over the winter, as some of my build budget was freed up, and some storage space became available for completed projects. I first moved onto assembling the Ciocc Designer '84 bicycle - by the way, the name should be spelled "Ciöcc", with the umlaut over the O to show a distinctive pronunciation. I usually eliminate the symbol, as it makes searches complicated, but I found out the dialect from Bergamo, Italy, pronounces the ö sound like the oe in "shoe". So the brand is properly said "chooch"!

   I've built a handful of Ciöcc bicycles over the years, and while the high-quality Italian brand might not be as recognized as Colnago and Pinarello, it's probably because they haven't had a presence in the pro racing. I've assembled the Columbus SL steel frame with a bit of a retro-mod build. The bike originally came with a fantastic Campagnolo Super Record crankset and seatpost, and I've added the rest of a Chorus 9-speed group, Cinelli stem/bars and a pair of excellent Ambrosio wheels!

   My friend Ralph asked if I might list his 2012 Colnago CLX 3.0 for him. Now in his 80s, he only rode this occasionally on the nearby Schuylkill Trail. Ralph has been a cyclist all of his life and was fanatical about caring for his machines; it is in nearly flawless condition! The 50s (fits like a traditional 54cm frame) bike is currently equipped with Athena mechanical gruppo, but the bike has the wiring ports available for the option of installing electronic components.

   The Colnago was originally over $4000, and I've seen prices all over the place. We're starting around $2500, but that is certainly negotiable.

   A couple of newer projects coming up include an early-1980s Tommasini Racing Strada constructed of Columbus SL tubing and Cinelli lugs. The frame includes wonderful pantografia (engravings) everywhere! The purchase came with a partial Campagnolo Nuovo Record groupset, including wonderful Tommasini-engraved shift levers, so I'm currently filling in the missing components.

   I was excited to recently find an Eddy Merckx Corsa Extra painted for the 1989 7-Eleven cycling team. It was mostly outfitted in Campagnolo Athena 8-speed, but again, I have to fill in the parts list. The previous owner had installed a Look carbon fork, which is a nice feature for weight reduction and ride quality, so I am thinking of having that painted to match the frame.

   The bike was well-used, so I am taking it completely apart for cleaning and fresh lubrication. The multiple nicks on the top tube will also need to be touched-up (white primer underneath, ugh!) A new saddle and some Vittoria tan wall tires will finish off the overall look nicely!