Tour
Described at
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April 23, 1979 "Are you really going to ride all the way across the state?" they asked. "Do you think I could make it?" Sunday, representatives of the Tulsa World/Tulsa Wheelmen's FreeWheel '79 bicycle tour across Oklahoma spent an after noon talking about the June 10-16, 420-mile ride from the Red River to Kansas. Overlooking the ice skating rink in the Williams Center Forum shopping center, Tulsa Wheelmen bike club teen-agers Frank Thomas and Ricky Mattioni pedaled a revolutionary new bike being developed by a Tulsa firm. Bike shop owner Arlie Snow demonstrated bicycle maintenance. And tour riders Sue Ames and Evelyn Thomas answered questions: Q - How is everybody going to get to the Red River? A - Ride officials are working on arrangements for possible free transportation, but nothing definite is set... yet. Otherwise, participants will have to get to Lake Texoma on their own. Q - What kind of accommodations are available? A - Most riders are camping out in areas set aside by the six cities selected as overnight stops. Otherwise, motel rooms are first-come, first-serve. Reports from the first night stopover - Tishomingo - indicate the town is already booked solid. Q - How many people are going? A - As many as want to. We've never done this before and haven't the slightest idea of how it will go over. In a similar ride in Iowa, 7,000 rider have shown up. Q - Do you have to ride all 420 miles? A - No. There is no registration, no competition, no timing. You can pick up the tour in Seminole and quit 20 miles later in Cromwell. You can ride from the Red River and give up when you reach Sand Springs. Q - It is going to be affordable for a family? A - Would you believe it is FREE? Nobody pays anything. Obviously, bike repairs and meals, suntan lotion and postcards, sunglasses and lemonade are going to cost - but no money goes to the sponsors. Meals will be served at the stopovers, but local civic groups will be charging and making the profits. "We had quite a day," said Wheelmen President Rick Mattioni. "You'd be surprised how many people are seriously thinking about going."
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