The Blog Page

News, commentary and humor about bicycling and other topics of the day

 

Bike St. Louis ribbon cutting

St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay and some aldermen will be cutting the ribbon for the Bike St. Louis routes at 11:45 a.m. Wednesday, April 6, in front of Soldiers Memorial, 108 N. 14th St., in downtown St. Louis. Bike St. Louis is a 20-mile system of bike routes that connect downtown St. Louis with Forest, Tower Grove and Lafayette parks. The city, in conjunction with the Great Rivers Greenway, is hoping to expand upon that in the years to come. To learn more about Bike St. Louis, including downloading a map, visit Bike St. Louis' Web site.

Roger 0 comments 5:04 PM

Three Stooges marathon on Spike!

For those of you who need to get mentally ready for the Tour de Stooges, the Spike TV cable network is putting on a 9-hour Three Stooges marathon from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. CST Friday, April 1. As far as getting physically ready for the ride, well, just get out and ride -- after the marathon, of course!

The marathon kicks off Spike's regular Stooges program. Spike also will be showing an hour of the Stooges each Saturday and Sunday at 8 a.m. CT. Read more about this at the Stooges' Web site.

Roger 0 comments 3:50 PM

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Several more random thoughts

If you're looking for deep thoughts about bicycling, look elsewhere on this page. But these are my thoughts for the day, so here goes:

ST. LOUIS MAGAZINE: I finally picked up the April 2005 issue of St. Louis Magazine that includes this blog in its list of "A Few Good Blogs," a sidebar to its article "In Blogs We Trust." The Web site features a shortened version of the article and does not include links to other blogs included in the sidebar, so you will have to buy the magazine to find out what those other good blogs are.

REMEMBERING WES KRAMER: While I was buying the magazine, a scone and getting a free mocha drink at Borders in Fairview Heights, Ill., I had the chance talk to Bren, one of the baristas, about art. It turns out Bren is studying art therapy, the field my late brother's wife, Sue Norsigian, has taken up. She works at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Belleville.

Bren and I then started talking about my late brother. Wes would have celebrated his 50th birthday March 18 had he not been fatally stabbed June 30, 1996, in Granite City. Wes was a very gifted artist, and I was pointing out what a shame it is that many of his pieces are sitting in my mom's attic instead of being out in public where people can appreciate them.

I told Bren that it's my hope to scan in the slides of some of his art work and put it on the Web in some way. I have the slides, and I hope I can start scanning the slides after the Tour de Stooges is finished in May.

"NAPOLEON DYNAMITE": Thanks to my nieces and nephew, I finally got the chance to see "Napoleon Dynamite" on Easter Sunday. The film has become somewhat of a cult classic. It doesn't have much of a plot, but it has a lot of funny lines. Even my 72-year-old mother was laughing out loud at some of the antics!

John Bigalke has put out a line of T-shirts based on the film through his Beatnik's shop in Belleville. And on April 29, John's humor newspaper, The News Rocket, is putting on a Napoleon Dynamite Festival at the Ground Floor coffee shop in Belleville. It ought to be a flippin' sweet time!

Roger 0 comments 2:08 PM

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

My sister's bike has been stolen!

Bad news to report from Evanston, Ill. My older sister, Teresa Parod, reported that her bicycle had been stolen Tuesday. The theft took place outside the Art Institute in Chicago despite the fact she had locked her bicycle.

Teresa has a love of cycling that rivals mine. While she was in high school, she often would ride her single-speed bike seven miles one-way from our farm in Brighton, Ill., to Southwestern High School in Piasa. That's something her younger brother didn't do -- until several years after I graduated from college. She was with me on my very first weeklong bicycle ride 20 years ago, the BAMMI ride from Chicago to Edwardsville. And she and her kids were with me last year on the West Shoreline Tour in Michigan.

She rides a lot. She may not be as fast as her brother, but she gets there and that's the important thing. Hopefully, she'll find another bike quickly and get back on the road.

Meanwhile, I'm including a link to Jim Langley's article about locking your bike and what to do if it gets stolen. A lot of the things Langley, the former chief technical editor of Bicycling Magazine, says make sense, so I recommend them to you.

Roger 1 comments 10:57 AM

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

A few good blogs....

Soon after I woke up this morning, I turned on my computer, got my e-mails and got a pleasant surprise from my friend Jeff Herman, a copy editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and a classmate of mine at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville!

Jeff let me and several of our mutual friends know that St. Louis Magazine has listed this humble Blog Page in its listing of "a few good blogs" in the April 2005 issue of the magazine. Wow!

I have to say it's nice to get some recognition, but that's not the reason why I do this Web site, including the Blog Page. I do it to give something back to the cycling community, which has done a lot for me over the years. I hope I've succeeded in that mission, and I hope to continue it for years to come.

Roger 2 comments 9:45 AM

Monday, March 21, 2005

Now's the time to register for Tour de Stooges

The eighth edition of the Tour de Stooges bicycle ride will be Saturday, May 7, at McKendree College in Lebanon, Ill., and now is the time to register for the ride!

Why now? Because if you register by April 15, you get a $5 discount on your T-shirt! Through April 15, the shirts are $15. After that -- including day of the ride -- the shirts are $20. The shirts are licensed Three Stooges merchandise featuring a Stooges in the professorial gowns they wore in the classic short "Violent Is the Word for Curly" and a map of the Tour de Stooges course on the back. This year's shirt honors our host for the event, McKendree College. The image at left is the one that will appear on the T-shirt.

The Tour de Stooges consists of five routes ranging from 13 to 63 miles on scenic, lightly traveled roads in Southwestern Illinois. After the ride, enjoy an all-you-can-eat buffet, which is included in the cost of the ride, and all The Three Stooges films you can stand.

In recent years, the ride has drawn people from as far away as Chicago, Kansas City, Memphis and Iowa. We hope you'll come visit us May 7 for the ride!

To learn more about the ride or to register, visit the Tour de Stooges Web site. We offer online registration through Active.com, or you can download a PDF form on our Registration page.

Roger 2 comments 11:34 AM

Sunday, March 13, 2005

Cycling pioneer with Illinois ties

A few weeks ago, I read a Velo News article about Joseph Magnani, an American bicycle racer who raced professionally for French and Italian teams from 1935 to 1948. Among his feats were winning the 1935 Marseille-Nice road race classic, which catapulted him to world-class stature and performing well in one-day classics such as Milan-San Remo.

What I found even more fascinating is that he spent his boyhood in Mount Clare, Ill. For those of you who don't know where Mount Clare is, it a tiny, old coal mining town in my native county, Macoupin County. It's nestled among three other old mining communities -- Benld, Gillespie and Wilsonville -- located about halfway between St. Louis and Springfield, Ill. In 1928, Magnani was sent to live in France, where he got involved in bicycle racing clubs.

Even though I also grew up in Macoupin County -- Brighton to be precise -- I had no idea who Joseph Magnani was until I read the Velo News article. I invite you to read Peter Joffre Nye's excellent account of Magnani's life here: http://www.velonews.com/news/fea/7566.0.html.

Roger 1 comments 2:59 PM

BABES share maps of metro-east routes

Part of the reason why you haven't seen any posts here in the past week and a half is because I've been busy updating the Belleville Area Bicycling and Eating Society's site.

As a service to St. Louis-area cyclists, BABES ride leaders are sharing maps of their favorite routes in the metro-east. Illinois always has been a favorite destination for St. Louis-area cyclists because of its scenic, low-traffic country roads. You can download the maps on the BABES' Maps page. Most of the maps are PDF files that you can download and print for use.

The BABES' first Wednesday Evening Ride of the 2005 season will be April 13 at Scheve Park in Mascoutah, Ill. For more details, visit the BABES Ride Calendar.

Roger 0 comments 2:27 PM

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Life on the Lewis and Clark Trail

Author, humorist and educator John Lynn of Peoria will be visiting Fairview Heights to present a slide show on the epic story of the crossing of the Continental Divide by Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery. John mountain biked their nearly 400-mile route through Montana and Idaho, including the scenic Lolo Trail across the Bitterroot Mountains.

The program will be from 5 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday, March 10, at the Kinsella Community Room of the Fairview Heights Public Library, 10017 Bunkum Rd. in Fairview Heights, Ill. Reservations are required for the event, and they can be made by calling (618) 489-207 or sending an e-mail to fha@lcls.org.

To learn more about John, you can read a short biography on the Lemont Public Library District's Web site, http://www.lemontlibrary.org/event/event3.htm. To learn more about the Fairview Heights Public Library, visit its Web site at http://www.fairviewheightslibrary.org/.

Roger 0 comments 2:53 PM