Woke this morning to the story of a six-alarm blaze downtown, encompassing the better part of a city block. Realized that the area in question is just down the street from my office, and among the businesses there is Duke’s Cycle.
As I was flipping around the AM dial on my drive in, came upon a talk radio host interviewing a very shocked Gary Duke. He actually watched his family business of 94 years burn, watched as the building where his father was born in an upstairs apartment collapse. So incredibly sad. The block is still burning as we speak, I can see the smoke out my window,
Duke’s is/was one of the few really good bike shops downtown that had an emphasis on roadies/triathletes. Their staff knew their stuff, they had an excellent selection (including Cervelo’s), the service was excellent and they were always helpful with information. The prices were fair, too. All these factors combined seems to be a rarity in the immediate downtown.
Gary mentioned that he thinks he is insured (he had about 80% of his Spring inventory in), and has a good relationship with his suppliers. But his building is totally gone, he said it’s a “parking lot”.
ahh man - that is horrible news. That sucks to have such history burned down.
I bought my first cervelo there a few years back. Dealt with Gary, himself and the experience was great. That shop had such a historic, old school, downtown feel to it. I hope he gets the place back up and running and better than ever.
That is brutal…Dukes has always been one of the premier shop in Canada (never mind just Toronto). Hope gary gets to read this and finds it inspiring enough to start it up again…if you build it…we will come man.
Thanks for posting this up. Just heard the news on the CBC myself. Sad news. Duke’s was that rare classic old-school bike shop that was also at the same time very progressive in keeping up with the times on service and technology. I am sorry for Gary and the rest of the Duke family. I hope that he will be able to pick up the pieces and carry on.
I watched the destruction on Breakfast Television no one could get close enough to the fire to identify the business before I left for work. No trip to Toronto was complete without a stop at their shop. They were excellent with customer service!! I hope they are insured and can get back on their feet.
That’s terrible. A fire is one thing I hope I never have to deal with. I saw some clips on the news this morning out here in B.C. but they didn’t say much about it. I got the impression that they were old, abandoned buildings but obviously not.