Tag: Illinois

1984 Bike Tour: Day 23 – Rest and repair

CARBONDALE, ILL. — We had plans to take off this morning for the Missouri border. I jumped out of bed early, did some laundry and putzed around. When it was 10 a.m. and we were just getting to breakfast, we came to the brilliant conclusion that we were still half hungover, we hadn't stopped since Charlottesville, Va., and we could …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2020/06/04/1984-bike-tour-day-23-rest-and-repair/

1984 Bike Tour: Day 22 – Just like cowboys after a cattle drive

CARBONDALE, ILL. — After three weeks on the TransAmerica Route, we decided that we needed a break here in the hometown of Southern Illinois University.

A bike rider out for an afternoon spin hooked up with us outside of town and guided us along a shortcut to his favorite bike shop. We found a room at the Uptown Motel, took our first showers in about three days, and began to celebrate like cowboys coming off a dusty cattle drive.

We stopped at a tavern called Booby's (it might have been Bobby's, but I wrote double o's in my journal… it's a college town; probably was Booby's) for a pitcher of beer, ate some greaseburgers at Wendy's, watched the just-released, “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” and then stopped at a bar for another pitcher. We had landed in dry counties every night since Whytheville, Va., so we had some catching up to do….

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2020/06/03/1984-bike-tour-day-22-just-like-cowboys-after-a-cattle-drive/

1984 Bike Tour: Day 21 – Pirates, bandits and skeeters at Cave-in-Rock

CAVE-IN-ROCK, ILL. — We crossed the brown-with-mud Ohio River on the Ida L ferry this afternoon on our ride through the former haunt of pirates and bandits and the present-day domain of mosquitoes. 
We were happy to leave the Sebree park, what with freight trains passing by all night. Our route immediately detoured because of the flooding (the paper said 30,000 acres were underwater due to the Green River backing up), but we still made good time into Dixon, where folks told us a small group of bicycle tourists had passed through yesterday.

At Marietta's Cafe in Marion, we signed the guestbook and saw the names of three cyclists from Connecticut (the same guys we've been leapfrogging ever since Virginia) just above ours. …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2020/06/02/1984-bike-tour-day-21-pirates-bandits-and-skeeters-at-cave-in-rock/

More than 800 miles added to U.S. Bicycle Route System

A network of signed bicycle routes designed to criss-cross the US has grown to 6,790 miles with the certification of new routes in Washington state, Massachusetts, Ohio, Illinois and the District of Columbia.

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials certified the 816 miles of roadway for the U.S. Bicycle Route System at its meeting earlier this …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2014/06/17/more-than-800-miles-added-to-u-s-bicycle-route-system/

Helping a bike traveler in dire straits

The story in the Evansville Courier-Press of a man who “adopted” a foreign bicycle traveler recovering from a traffic collision is one of those that restores my faith in humanity.

Thomas Persson had come to the US last year from Sweden to ride his Surly Long Haul Trucker from the Washington DC area to San …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2012/11/05/helping-a-bike-traveler-in-dire-straits/