• Rhnea's name is not Karen. She pronounces it, incidentially, like the French Renée. She kindly sent me a copy of the paper with best wishes for the trip.
• The "Bicentennial" route is actually the "Bikecentennial" (now Adventure Cycling) route.
• The route starts in Yorktown, Virginia, but I didn't.
• The Italian team that rides Cannondales is the Saeco team.
• This article is reprinted verbatim. In other words, "sic" applies all over the place.

Biker stops in Hazard on cross country trek retracing the Bicentennial route

One of the lasting contributions of the celebration of the country's bicenntennial in 1976 was the laying out of the national bicyle tour. The tour route begins in historic Yorktown, Virginia and meanders from the Atlantic coast through the Appalachians across the Great Plains up the Rockies and terminates in Astoria, Oregon on the Pacific shore line 4200 miles of the American heartland. The route sticks to the back roads, the less traveled parts of the country. Tour maps with all the pertinent information needed for bikers on the tour are available and can be ordered from biking magazines.

Last Tuesday I went by the 12th Gear Bike Shop to talk with Karen, where I met Mark Gardner, who left Yorktown, Va. in early May to bike the 1976 Bicentennial Route. Hazard's 12th Gear bike Shop is the only bike shop in Kentucky listed on the official maps.

Mark's bike, a 21-gear Cannondale, was in need of some minor repairs and he stopped a day in Hazard to attend to those problems. Cannondale is an American made bike, the official bike of the Italian team used them in the Tour de France.

Mark said,"I've not been out of the lower gears since entering the mountains in Western Virginia. I have been averaging about four and a half miles an hour in the mountains, consistently making 60 miles a day. The pace will pick up in the flatlands of Central Kentucky. Most people on this tour go from west to east taking advantage of the prevailing winds. Going east to west you battle the winds all the way."

I asked, "Mark, what are some of the essentials you take with you on a cross country bike tour?"

He answered, "Lightweight camping gear, tent, sleeping bag, camp stove, tool kit extra intertubes, rain gear, the maps, which include, camping locations, places to eat, bike shops and other useful information. Most nights are spent in camp grounds, usually state parks.

"Two days ago I and the fellows who are on the tour with me stayed at the Breaks and got little sleep, because of the blaring music from camping neighbors, who apparently don't enjoy the solitude of wilderness camping. Usually things are peaceful in the camping areas."

"Mark, what about food on the trip?" I asked.

"Whenever possible I like to eat fresh vegetables and carboyhydrates providing the energy to power the bike," Mark explains. "My pack includes a supply of pasta and a variety of herbs to add zest. I eat fast foods only as a last resort."

It was lunch time and I took Mark to Frances Diner for some real honest food. He enjoyed that meal. noting that Kentucky cornbread, lacked sugar, unlike the Georgia variety.

Mark is an engineer who has spent the last few years as a computer programmer - a job he will return to after the bike tour.