Diverting My Commute Through History

The bike/pedestrian lane on the Queens spur of the RFK Memorial (a.k.a. Triborough) Bridge has been closed for "painting and repairs."  The signs said the lane would be closed from 9 am to 5 pm from the 1st to the 26th of this month.  I didn't figure that it would affect me much, if at all, since I always go in to work before 9 and usually am heading home after 5.

Last Tuesday, however, I didn't leave work until 8 pm.  I pedaled across the Randall's Island connector and the island to the Queens spur of the bridge.  There, the gate was still locked, with the same sign announcing its closure.

All right, I told myself.  Maybe they just forgot to reopen it.  That night, it meant backtracking to the north end of the island and the Manhattan spur of the bridge.  Then I rode down Second Avenue from 125th Street to the Queensborough (a.k.a. 59th Street) Bridge.  It was a longer commute home, but I didn't mind, really.

Well, the Queens spur of the RFK hasn't been opened since.  No one from the Department of Transportation has returned my calls.  (Should I be surprised?)  So, I've been taking another route to and from work.  To get to the Bronx, I've been crossing the Queensborough to First Avenue, which has a bike lane all the way up to 125th Street.  From there, I take the Willis Avenue Bridge into the Bronx.  It's not bad, really:  Above 96th Street, there isn't much traffic, and below, there are other cyclists so, if nothing else, we're visible, though one has to watch for pedestrians who step into the lane while looking at their electronic devices or simply not looking at anything in their surroundings.  One place where you have to be careful  is at 96th Street, where traffic enters and exits the FDR Drive and there are several schools, a hospital and the largest mosque in the US within a two-block radius. 

(Along the way I passed several fruit sellers.  I stopped at one and bought my first cherries of the season.)

I often think that I ride, write and teach for the same reason:  to learn.  Well, today, I did just that on the Willis Avenue Bridge--or, more specifically, what's below the Bronx side of it:

 

Now, I know it looks like just another lot in an industrial landscape.  But this plaque, on the bridge, told of its significance:

It may be hard to believe that until 1840, most of the Bronx was farmland or woods.  That changed when the railroad cut through the area around that lot, which is now crisscrossed by highways, bridges and railroad tracks. 

Port Morris--the part of the South Bronx by the bridge--became the first commercial and industrial area of the Bronx.  (In fact, one nearby section became the nation's center of piano-making and has recently been dubbed "The Piano District" by realtors who are envisioning the next DUMBO.)  It also became a railroad center, which is why the roundhouse was built on the site under the bridge. 

Hmm...You never know what a slight change in your daily commute can teach you, eh?

A Storm Chaser, In Reverse

You've probably heard of "storm chasers".  They're the folks who pursue hurricanes, tornadoes and such, and sometimes fly into them.

You might say that yesterday, I was the opposite of a "storm chaser".  Instead of riding into the storm, I wanted to finish my ride just in front of it. 

Actually, I just wanted to get a ride in with the limited time I had because I woke up late and had a couple of things to take care of.  I could have skipped riding, I suppose, but I have felt so sedentary and indoor-bound lately.

Late in the afternoon, according to the weather forecasts, we were supposed to have thunderstorms with strong winds and possibly hail.  Now, I don't mind riding in the rain unless it's cold, but I try to avoid conditions that were predicted.  

I alighted for the Rockaways at 1pm.  I figured I could make it at least to Rockaway Beach and back before the deluge.  

Even if you haven't spent a lot of time seaside, you could tell, from looking at the clouds that the weather was going to take a turn for the worse.  And the wind coming off the ocean wasn't merely brisk; it had the edge and that weightless feeling of "butterflies in the stomach" that signals approaching bad weather.

Well, I did manage to have a light late lunch by the beach and make it home before the rain came.  Although it fell steadily for a time, and the wind blew my bedroom door open, we didn't get any hail, there were no rumbles of thunder and lightning didn't blaze the sky, which remained as gray as I saw it at Rockaway Beach.

Oh well.  I guess that instead of being a reverse storm-chaser, I played chicken with the rain, again.

Deore DX: Will It Become Shimano's "Forgotten" Ensemble?

Last year,  I wrote about the Campagnolo Gran Sport gruppo that was made from 1975 until 1985.  It was Campy's "second line", behind the Record.  Gran Sport parts echoed, for the most part, Record's designs, but omitted a few convenience features (such as infinitely-variable quick-release levers on the brake calipers) and weren't as nicely finished.  That Gran Sport gruppo (not to be confused with the GS ensemble of the 1950s and early 1960s) was never terribly popular, at least here in the US, because top-of-the line Sun Tour Superbe and Shimano Dura-Ace components, which were prettier and lighter (and with derailleurs that shifted better) cost about the same as, or less than Gran Sport stuff.  Also, as  Brooks ("Retrogrouch") pointed out, Record components and gruppos could be had, via mail-order catalogues, for about the same amount of money as one would pay for Gran Sport in a shop.

Today, I am going to write about another "lost" gruppo.  This one began production a few years after Gran Sport ended. And, unlike GS and Record, the components I'm about to mention were not intended for road racing. Rather, they were designed for the then-relatively-new sport of mountain biking.

Daniel Rebour drawing of the original Deore touring ensemble, 1981

In 1981, just before mountain biking spread from its original enclaves in northern California and New England, Shimano made its first touring ensemble.  Now--again, I refer to "Retrogrouch"--it wasn't anywhere near as encompassing as Campagnolo's racing gruppos:  It didn't include, for example, brakes or a seatpost.  But it may have been the first attempt, however imperfect, at offering a coordinated set of drivetrain components for bicycle touring. 

That ensemble, though, didn't lead to a Shimano domination of the touring market.  Japanese manufacturers (and Trek) had been making good loaded touring bikes for several years, usually with a mixture of components like Sun Tour derailleurs with Sugino or Sakae Ringyo (SR) cranks, Dia Compe brakes and Sanshin hubs.  Some of those bike manufacturers started to use the new Deore derailleurs, but in companion with the other components I've mentioned.



1982 Shimano Deore XT ensemble.

So, if dominating the touring market was Shimano's intention, they didn't succeed.  However, mountain biking was about to take off, and that is where Deore components would find their niche.  The year after they were introduced, they were tweaked and hubs, brakes and new brake and shift levers were added.  So was the Deore XT, the first mountain bike group, born.

For the next four years, the Deore XT was Shimano's only mountain bike ensemble.  In 1986, other, lower-priced groups and parts were introduced--including the Mountain LX in 1988.  (Shimano had been making a road LX group.)  Then, in 1990, a new set of components that had most of the features of the XT--and an attractive look--first saw the light of day.

If the Deore XT was the Dura Ace or Campagnolo Record of the mountain bike world, then the Deore DX was its Ultegra/600.  It didn't take long for DX to appear on high-end mountain bikes from the likes of Trek, Gary Fisher and Klein, among other makers.  Like the Campy Gran Sport Gruppo, it offered performance that differed imperceptibly, if at all, from the top-of-the line parts--at considerably lower cost.



Deore DX group, from the 1991 Shimano catalogue

If anything, the DX might have been even closer to XT than Gran Sport was to Record.  For one thing, none of the essential or convenience features were sacrificed.  The DX finishing work might not have been, on close inspection, quite up to XT standards, but almost nobody thought DX stuff was ugly.  The chief difference, it seemed, was in weight, which had to do with materials.  For example, the same parallelogram and knuckles were found on XT and DX derailleurs, but the DX had a steel pulley cage, in contrast to the alloy one on the XT. 

Touring bikes were out of favor by the time DX came along in 1990, but the dedicated tourers that were being made (or re-vamped) by that time were often adorned with DX equipment.  So were tandems and cyclo-cross bikes. (The latter is one reason why Shimano made a short-cage version of the DX rear derailleur.)  Those who used DX equipment almost invariably praised it and, in fact, a fair number of  riders are still riding with DX stuff they bought twenty-five years ago. 

So why don't we see more of it today?  Well, Shimano stopped production of Deore DX components in 1993.  By that time, Shimano had upgraded the Deore LX lineup to the point that it was just about as good as DX, for about a third less money.  At that time, both road and mountain bikes were moving from seven- to eight-speed cassettes.  Shimano started to offer the LX with 8 speeds that year, but didn't "upgrade" the DX.  So, people who bought new bikes or components were buying 8 speed--which, of course, meant Deore LX.

Also, that same year, Shimano introduced its new "super" mountain group:  the XTR. With that addition, Shimano had ten different levels of mountain bike components (XTR, XT, DX, LX, Exage ES and LT and Altus A10, A20, C10 and C20).  I guess the company decided that for 1994, it simply didn't want to make that many lines of parts.  So, out went DX and the Exage and Altus lines.  In their place came two levels of STX and two levels of Alivio at the bottom of Shimano's mountain bike lineup.  The 8-speed Deore LX had, by 1995, firmly established itself as Shimano's "third" mountain bike line, roughly analogous to the 105 road group.

So...while Shimano produced Deore DX components for only three years, and production stopped more than two decades ago, many are still being ridden.  (I ride a short-cage DX rear derailleur on Helene, my later-model Mercian mixte, with a 9-speed cassette.) That, I think, is a testament to how well they were made.  Also, some of us simply prefer the look of them to what's made today.  

Still, aside from those of us who know and ride them, almost nobody mentions Deore DX components anymore.  Will they become Shimano's "forgotten" mountain bike group?

With An Old Friend, Again. At Least We Didn't Have To Wait As Long This Time!

Yesterday I had a long work day.  The end of the semester is near, so some students are in, or nearing, Full Panic Mode.  Some are just naturally nervous, while others simply procrastinated or skipped classes (not realizing just how many classes they'd skipped!) and now want to "save" their semesters.

So, I got to ride only for a short time after work on a sunny day that's the warmest we've had so far this year.  But I'm not complaining:  I had dinner and drinks with someone special.

Michele, one of my French friends, was in town with Alec--her new husband. She married him in September, not long after my trip to Paris in August.  Although I saw her then, I didn't get to see him.  He is charming and funny, just like all of those Frenchmen you've always heard about. 

Like Michele, he is recently retired, a few years earlier than most Americans.  (Gotta love the French system, huh?)  They actually met, they explained, when they were 18 years old and in Spain.  After returning to France, they went to school, took jobs, married and had kids by other people, and did all of those other things one does for about half of one's life.  And they got divorced. After being out of touch for 35 years, Michele said, he called her one day out of the blue.  But they didn't start dating until a number of years later.  Now they are ready to spend their lives traveling and enjoying each other's company, they said.

And, needless to say, I enjoyed theirs.  We promised that we'd "reconnaitre bientot"--get together again, soon! 

More Bike Lane Follies

Writing yesterday's post got me to thinking, again, about some of the really bad bike lanes I've ridden. I'm talking about the kind that, if they don't enrage you because they put you in more danger than you would have experienced while riding with cars and trucks, they leave you scratching your head and wondering, "What were they thinking when they built this?"

Of course, some of those lanes aren't exactly built:  They were merely designated by some lines of paint and a few signs.  But there are the ones that make you wonder why anybody bothered to spend the time or money to build barriers or cut through parkland. 

Paths like those lead to nowhere.  I wrote about such a lane in an earlier post:

A year later, I showed another that ran under the elevated tracks of the IRT #1 train in upper Manhattan--and right into the pillars that support said tracks:

I guess I shouldn't complain, though.  No lane I've ridden is quite like this one:

It's in Exeter, England.  Hmm...Maybe the Brits have some sort of cycling we've never dreamed of here in the 'States.  Whatever it is, it's certainly stranger than riding down this bike lane:

It might be the only bike lane in the world designed for BMXers or downhill riders--though I still rather doubt that whoever conceived it has ever been anywhere near a bike!