Riders,
Organizers
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June 10, 1979 By ROB KERBY DENNISON, Texas - Eisenhower State Park, all 179 campsites, was packed here Saturday night as bicyclist from several states gathered for Free Wheel'79, a 431-mile bike ride across Oklahoma. The ride begins at 9 a.m. Sunday with Governor George Nigh leading riders across Lake Texoma's Denison Dam and into Oklahoma. About 50 riders Saturday afternoon packed into one chartered bus for the trip from Tulsa and on arriving at Eisenhower Park snatched up the last three campsites and crowded into sites already claimed by other riders. As tents were pitched and campers settled in, anxiously, nervously, the beginners mingled with the veteran bike riders seeking advice. Doug Brammer, Vinita, admitted having never ridden anything approaching the 50 to 70 mile per day Free Wheel, which is sponsored by the Tulsa World and the Tulsa Wheelmen bike club. Assurances were passed along by Mrs. Niki Hall-Hensley who just returned from a biking tour of Wales and the Allen Merrill family, veterans of a 600-mile biking vacation to Houston. Elsewhere, behind the scenes the hard work of the ride began. J.D. Blackwell, began packing together the thousand signs marking the daily route. Before dawn he will put out the yellow and green arrows to prevent riders from straying to New Mexico. Bob Pierce met with sag wagon drivers and backup crews, setting strategy for efficient patrolling of the rout in vans borrowed from Tulsa Truck Rental and Thomas Cadillac. Medic Dan Mallory pitched camp with his Boy Scout Explorers around the Owasso ambulance which is making the trip. Highway Patrolman J.R. Jones checked in and picked up the detailed maps which will be given all riders. Jones and Trooper David Blackburn will be accompanying riders on Sunday's first leg; 65.8 miles to Tishomingo. There at 5 p.m. the teenage girls' Sunday School class of the First Baptist Church will be serving Free Wheelers a pot luck picnic. At 7 p.m. the church will present a special evening program to the tired riders. It was not know Saturday night how many of the state park camp sites contained bicyclist. "Are you MORE bicyclist?" greeted a turnpike attendant on Oklahoma's Indian Nation Turnpike. "Where are all these people going?" asked a desk clerk at Denison's Holiday Inn - also filled with Free Wheelers. "We're going to ride across Oklahoma,"said Wilma Schindeler, 16. Can anybody join Free Wheel '79 as the ride twists through Ada, Seminole, Okmulgee, Sand Springs and Bartlesville on its way to Chetopa Kan., Saturday night?" "Sure," said rider leader Rick Mattioni. "But you have to be as crazy as we are."
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