As I mentioned in the previous post, my family and I have been enjoying a week with our neighbors to the north in Canada, and I brought one of my vintage Mercian bikes to do some two-wheeled exploring during our stay. Our first stop had been in the Niagara region, and then we headed around Lake Ontario and up to the Province of Quebec to spend a couple of days in Montreal.
Now, I've been to Canada many times - mostly in Ontario, but also a visit to British Columbia some years back. One of the things that's pretty obvious when visiting Canada is that almost all signs (road signs, etc.) are in both English and French. I had assumed that this would still be the case in Quebec -- I mean, I thought maybe French would be first, with English second -- but I assumed signs would still be "bi-lingual." Turned out I was wrong. Quebec is pretty much "full-immersion" French. I should also mention that currently about half of Montreal seems to be under construction, with road and lane closures at just about every turn, and lots of detours. Believe me, it was an exciting (and nerve-wracking) experience trying to navigate the city while struggling to understand the road signs.
Let me back up a moment. So, in high school and college I had taken a little bit of Spanish, and a little bit of French. Not enough of either one to become even remotely proficient. And that was about 35 years ago. When reading in either language, especially if I have some context, I can usually get a decent gist of what something means, albeit slowly. But when someone actually speaks to me it's really difficult for me to process what they're saying. Hell, I can't even identify most of the words they're saying. So all over Montreal, every time someone would speak to me in French, I'd have this panic-stricken moment of indecision, kind of like a squirrel in the middle of the road with a car bearing down on it, then a confused verbal mess would pour forth from my mouth in a tangled combination of English, French, and Spanish. "Excuse me, parlez vous English, por favor?" Yeah - it's embarrassing. (However, one of our nights in town we had dinner in a great little Mexican restaurant where my unique SpaFraEnglish dialect worked out really well - just saying). Thankfully, most people we encountered were incredibly pleasant, patient, understanding - and bi-lingual. Friendly and pleasant - Canadians, this is why the world loves you.
Anyhow, Montreal has a reputation for being a very bike-friendly city, with miles and miles of bike lanes, paths, and other bike infrastructure all around the city. Unfortunately, a lot the previously mentioned construction is currently affecting the cycling infrastructure almost as much as for drivers, but I couldn't help but notice there are still bicycles and riders just about everywhere you look. It's clearly not stopping any riders.
My family and I were staying in a hotel near McGill University and just a few blocks from one of the most significant landmarks in the city - Mont Royal. On my first opportunity to get out on my bike, I did some exploring in the area near the hotel and the district known as "Le Plateau-Mont-Royal" which is a pretty laid-back, funky neighborhood. I managed to find a couple of bike shops that got my attention.
One was called Bikurious . . .
. . . Where I spotted some terrific eye-candy hanging around inside . . .
. . . Like this Gardin track bike hanging from the ceiling . . .
. . . And this gorgeous old Gios track bike.
Later, riding along a bike route on Rue Cherrier, I came across Le Grand Cycle which practically begs a cyclist to stop in.
"Halte Cycliste" - Yes, I recommend you do.
Just inside, hanging over the door was this nice vintage Campagnolo-equipped Marinoni. . .
Marinoni cycles are built not too far from Montreal in the town of Terrebonne, Quebec.
There were also vintage jerseys, and some fun retro-grouchy items on display in one of the glass cases.
When I walked into Le Grand Cycle with my vintage red Mercian, I immediately got compliments from several people inside. One of the associates was having his lunch when I walked in (poutine, of course) but was eager to take time out to talk bikes. I told him a little about my Mercian - he wasn't familiar with the marque - as he was admiring the details of the lugwork, vintage components, and its original paint. We had a nice chat, then he gave me a detailed map of Montreal and its network of bike routes, and gave some recommendations for places to see. What a great little shop! I was really glad I had stopped in.
One of the places he recommended I ride was the aforementioned Mont Royal.
Mont Royal, as seen from the roof of our hotel. You might notice that cross at the top. More about that later.
There is a network of trails all over the mountain, and it's a popular spot for hikers and cyclists alike.
One cool bit of cycling-related history is that Mont Royal was a significant feature of the 1976 Montreal Olympic bicycle road race. The race course circuit had the racers climbing Mont Royal 14 times. And American rider George Mount finished in 6th place overall -- one of the first hints that American cycling was finally starting to come of age. You can watch a few highlights from that race here:
The video quality isn't great - but notice near the beginning of the coverage that the commentator points out George Mount and then says "he's not expected to do much." Nice to know he had to eat those words. From watching the video, it seems that when it was raced in the '76 Olympics, the main route up to the summit was probably paved. Today, the route is a mostly firm-packed gravel (if someone knows more about that, feel free to leave a comment).
It's nice and wide, and mostly firm, but there are plenty of loose patches to be careful of. The main route winds its way up to the summit in such a way that the grade is fairly mild, but steady - probably somewhere between 5 - 10% and it works out to around 8 miles of steady climbing. I climbed it like a beast. Twice. But descended it more cautiously because it was really easy to lose traction in the curves. I could feel my relatively narrow road tires breaking loose at times on the descent, and I did not want to wash out and end up spending the next couple of weeks digging gravel and cinders out of my legs.
The area all around Mont Royal is a scenic park, with a lovely lake . . .
. . . and a little more than half-way up there is a nice chalet where drinks and snacks are available - and an observation deck offering excellent views of the city skyline.
(Had to get a bike picture in here somewhere)
Right near the summit of the mountain is this cross (you could see it in one of the photos above, looming over the city). The path takes you right up to it.
You might not be able to see him, but when I snapped this photo, there was a workman climbing up the inside of the cross, presumably to change lightbulbs. Yes, the cross is lit up at night.
Another place I got to explore was the Old Port area, where Montreal might easily remind one of a European city. Cobblestones and narrow streets and alleyways. Lots of sidewalk cafes, with artists and performers at every corner, interesting shops, and lots of "people watching" opportunities. It was also packed with tourists. It was, I regret, an area perhaps better explored on foot than on wheels.
After a couple days and nights in Montreal, we made the drive up the Saint Lawrence River to the city of Quebec.
It's been a little while since I've had any new posts, but I'm just wrapping up a family vacation in Canada. I brought a bike with me on the trip, so I've been able to do some riding while we're on our visit. Let me share a little from my first Canadian stop.
We made the drive from Ohio up to Buffalo, New York - about 4 hours - and crossed into Canada at the Peace Bridge connecting Buffalo to Fort Erie, Ontario. After sitting for a good half-hour at the customs checkpoint on the Canadian side, I unloaded my vintage red Mercian from the car and headed straight for the Niagara Parkway which follows the Niagara River from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, with Niagara Falls being roughly half-way between. My family continued on in the car to drive to the Falls and then on to the picturesque town of Niagara-on-the-Lake where we'd be lodging for the night.
The Niagara Parkway is a great bike ride - a little over 30 miles from Fort Erie to Niagara-on-the-Lake, and mostly flat. I've done it a few times in the past and I always stick to the road almost the entire ride - but if someone is not happy sharing the road with cars, there is a separate walking/biking path that follows beside the parkway for most of the distance.
Of course, the day I made the ride was probably the hottest day of the year - breaking records in many places. It was easily in the upper 90s with ghastly humidity. But I'd been planning and looking forward to the ride for long enough that I wasn't about to let that stop me.
A few miles north of Fort Erie, I got my first glimpse of the city of Niagara Falls, Ontario. Way off there in the distance, you can see some of the skyline and towers. Still got a ways to go!
A couple miles before you get to the falls, the river starts getting a lot rougher. Up to this point, traffic on the parkway is surprisingly sparse. I guess most people driving to the Falls take the Queen Elizabeth Highway (the QEW) though I cannot imagine why. But once you get near the Falls, traffic picks up tremendously - and suddenly there must be half a million people milling around trying to get photos. However, I have to point out that a bicycle here is at least as fast as any car - if not faster.
Yes, I stopped and snapped a couple of pictures.
There's the American side - and a rainbow.
My family and I had planned to meet up at the Falls, but finding each other would have been nearly impossible with the massive crowds. Worse still, parking the car was going to be a nightmare - so they just drove on by. They'd all seen the Falls before.
I suppose everyone should experience the madness of Clifton Hill in the city of Niagara Falls at least once in their lifetime, but . . .
. . . So we all skipped it.
Once I got past the Falls and the major tourist trap, I was making some great speed. At one point I came up behind a very British-looking double decker tour bus making the trek from the Falls to the botanical gardens a few miles to the north. I tucked in behind and drafted it at somewhere around 25 miles per hour. Some people in the back of the bus looked out the back window, saw me, and did a big "double-take." I'm sure they were thinking "Holy crap, this guy's nuts."
Not so "pretty" but still impressive - a little ways north of the Falls is a massive hydro electric plant. When it was built, it was the largest hydro electric plant in the world. This one replaced the original hydro plant in Niagara Falls which had been designed by Nikola Tesla and built by Westinghouse in 1895 - that one was the first such plant ever built.
When you start getting closer to Niagara-on-the-Lake, you start seeing lots of vineyards and wineries. That has become a huge business in the region. When I first started visiting the area about 25 years ago, there were a couple of wineries and the farms were more "diverse" with things like apples, cherries, etc. Now it's almost all grapes. And there are more wineries every time I visit. Even hockey legend Wayne Gretzky has a winery in Niagara-on-the-Lake.
There are some gorgeous homes in the region - which was mostly built up in the early 1800s. Most of the architecture would be described as "Victorian" - but occasionally one will find some impressive "Colonial" and "Colonial Revival" - like this example from the 1830s. This historic home, called "Willowbank," is just a little off the beaten path in the town of Queenston. It was built for Alexander Hamilton - but not THAT Alexander Hamilton - this one was a prominent official in the Niagara region in the early 1800s, years after that "other" Hamilton was killed in a famous duel.
The town of Niagara-on-the-Lake is almost impossibly quaint.
Everywhere you look, you'll see a burst of colors from all the flowers.
A couple pictures by the famous Prince of Wales hotel. Great hotel, I'm sure, but way out of our price range.
Greaves on the main drag has some of the best jams and jellies around. Definitely worth a stop.
Is this the only bike pic I got? Oh well. The red Mercian was a fantastic choice for the ride - light, smooth, and fast. For the non-English-majors reading this, that's a statue of George Bernard Shaw - whom many consider the greatest British playwright since Shakespeare. Niagara-on-the-Lake is famous for their Shaw theater festival. We didn't take in a play for this visit, but it's usually part of our itinerary.
We spent the night in town and got breakfast in a nice bakery on the main drag in the morning before heading off to our next stop - Montreal. Got to brush up on our French.
This past weekend I took a drive up to visit with my Michigan friends and take part in a memorial ride for framebuilder Randy Smolenski. Randy probably wasn't that well known outside of western Michigan, but he ran what sounds like a pretty terrific bike shop in Grand Rapids, and built some great bikes for the racers and club riders in that area. He had died in 2017 at about 70 years old. His birthday would have been Saturday.
Riders on Saturday were encouraged to ride their Smolenski-built bikes, though not everyone could do that (myself, for instance) and so the ride was an opportunity to see a bunch of examples of his work together in one place, and for people to share memories and swap stories about the builder. I heard a lot of them, and all I can say is that Randy must have been a real character - extremely knowledgable about bikes, perhaps a little "gruff" about it at times. Didn't suffer fools. Heart of gold. If he gave advice about bikes, it was best to follow it because he was very nearly always right. My kind of guy. All I can say is I wish I could have visited that shop and met the man.
According to my pal Jim T. who organized the ride, Randy started building bikes back in the early '80s because he was increasingly dissatisfied with the quality of bikes he was dealing with, and that included the workmanship on expensive Italian bikes from very prestigious names. Alignment issues, poor brazing or mitering, etc. He just knew he could do it better, and so he did. Looking at some of the examples on Saturday's ride, it was clear that Randy had developed a very distinct style in his frames - most of which were for racing. Super tight geometry, close clearances, fastback stays, clean and simple lugwork - the bikes just looked fast. He didn't build a lot of bikes - Jim estimates the number to be no more than about 150 - but it's hard to say for sure because Randy didn't bother with things like serial numbers, meticulous records, or anything like that. It's possible he couldn't have given a more accurate estimate himself.
The ride was about 60 miles, mostly flat, with a lot of it on the White Pine Trail which is a former railway line converted to bike trail. That much of the ride pretty much followed the same course as another group ride I participated in last year. But then the route took us away from the trail, through some pretty countryside and out to place called Baptist Lake where Jim has a cottage beside the lake. There we had a nice lunch, prepared by his wife, then we rode back the way we came. It was super hot - upper 80s at least - but with a good breeze to make it tolerable. We were joined on the ride by Randy's widow, Deb, who was happy to see how well Randy was remembered by riders in the area. It was a real pleasure to meet her.
A Look at the Bikes:
This pink Smolenski is one of ride-organizer Jim T's bikes. Built with a mix of old and modern parts. That forward-facing rear brake is found on a lot of Randy's bikes as you'll soon see.
The bike was originally built for the shifters that mounted on the top of the down tube - but such shifters are nearly impossible to find these days, and adapters are pretty much nonexistent. When Jim changed over to brifters on this bike, Randy made him a nifty little adapter for the shift cable stops.
Again - there's that forward-facing brake (really nice SunTour Superbe Pro with internal springs). And you can get a decent look at the fastback seat stay joinery and internal cable routing. It's hard to see in the shade here, but that pink paint has just a hint of pearl to it. Nice.
Here's another small-framed Smolenski owned by John B. - like the pink bike above, it has a tight wheelbase, forward facing rear brake, and fastback seat stays.
The lugs on this one are a little different than most Smolenski bikes - notice that little scroll detail.
A larger framed bike with Henry James lugs and fork crown. Randy's bikes usually had minimal graphics (just the name on the down tube and an "S" on the head tube), but this example doesn't even have that - but other details make it unmistakeable as far as who made it.
Henry James fork crown is interesting. And this bike also has the top-mount shift levers.
According to Jim, this would have been among the first few bikes that Randy built for sale. Even as an early example, it has a lot of distinctive elements that would become part of his style.
Top-mount shifters, clean short-point lugs. Almost no graphics. The bone-white with black components looks pretty awesome.
Here you can get a really good look at that seat stay/seat lug joinery. That is just so tight. This early example has a very short straight seat stay bridge - a lot of later bikes would have an inverted "v" bridge.
I only have one picture of this one - Randy's personal bike. What's different is that it is lugless. What's crazy is that I first thought it was welded, with the welds then filed smooth. But no. It's fillet-brazed. I've never seen fillet brazing with such a small, tight radius.
Here is a real showstopper belonging to Jason P. It features a gorgeous two-tone paint scheme and lots of gold-plated components. The bike was immaculate and just gleamed.
Awesome gold-plated highlights on this old Superbe Pro derailleur. Even the cable housing is gold-tinted. That derailleur was state of the art in the late '80s, and as far as I'm concerned, is state of the art today, too.
Gold plated and pantographed Superbe Pro crank, and highly polished pedals.
Perfect look at that fastback seat stay cluster, and the inverted "v" bridge. Seatpost is pantographed and gold plated, and even the Selle Italia Turbo saddle has polished gold accents. So much thought went into the finishing of this bike. All I can say is "Wow."
Super clean looking seat lug, and a very excellent Dia Compe Royal Gran Compe brakeset - black and gold from the factory.
Jason even sports a special "Smolenski Bikes Etc." wool jersey with 1947 - 2017 memorial dates on the sleeve. Very nice.
Another example of super tight-radius fillet brazing on this "not quite complete" Smolenski tandem.
There were a few non-Smolenski bikes along for the ride too. Here are some of the "Retrogrouch-approved" examples.
Skip M. brought this beautiful Jim Holly-built Griffon up from Chicago. Griffon cycles originally hailed from Santa Monica, CA. This one looks almost new and has a beautiful set of early generation SunTour Superbe components.
Someone brought this modern era lugged steel Bianchi with 80s vintage Campagnolo components.
A nice old Mercian King of Mercia model - probably '80s vintage if I had to guess.
And my own ride - Mercian Vincitore path racer - with Honjo fenders and small bags. My choice of a single speed fixed gear bike for a 60 mile ride was the topic of a lot of conversation throughout the day. But I'm just not convinced that derailleurs aren't a passing fad. Ha ha.
Saved by a Peanut Butter Wrench:
It turned out that my choosing a fixed gear bike had an unintended good consequence for the ride. Because I have my rear wheel attached with track nuts instead of a quick release, I always make sure I have a wrench packed in one of my bags in case I need to remove the wheel to fix a flat tire. And though there are smaller, more compact tools for that eventuality, I just make a habit of carrying a Campagnolo crank bolt wrench - aka the "peanut butter wrench," which is useful on crank bolts and track axle nuts alike. About 25 miles into our ride, one of our group suddenly discovered, to his horror, that one of his crank arms was coming loose. In a lot of instances, that would be the end of someone's ride. In fact, Jim was in the process of dialing his wife on the phone to see if she could drive out to the rescue. Once I realized what was going on, I yelled out "Oh my god - I've got this!" We got the crank bolts tightened up solidly and were back on the road in minutes. Peanut butter wrench saves the day.
Once again, it was great to get up to Michigan to ride with some old friends and meet some new ones. A big "thank you" goes out to Jim T. for putting it all together.
