Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Y'all wanna go fer a ride?

I was flipping through the latest issue of Outside magazine today when I came across this ad inviting mountain bikers (and their money) to visit Tennessee. Sorta makes you want to hop on your bike and hit the trails, huh? Them there southern trails is real purty.Well, not so fast. I happened to recognize the photo at the top of the ad, and it ain't from Tennessee. After work, I zipped home and pulled out an old copy of National Geographic to confirm that—for once—my memory wasn't letting me down.
The photo is from right here in good ol' Alaska's Lake Clark National Park. It was published in the May 1997 of National Geographic with an article by Roman Dial about traversing the Alaska Range by mountain bike.

So go riding in Tennessee if you're into that sort of thing.
You won't even have to worry about grizzlies.

Just don't expect it to look as good as Alaska.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your arrogance continues to infuriate me, and that is probably why I still read your blog.

KM said...

Editors hate people like you. Hilarious.

Cheers

Anonymous said...

Dude! Roman is so HARDCORE!

Dano said...

Nice catch.

Jill Homer said...

That is great. It is a strange choice of picture by the ad designers. I spent a week in eastern Tennessee once hiking in the Smoky Mountains. They were beautiful, but they didn't look anything like that picture. Huge hardwood trees choke the mountainsides all the way to the peaks. You never have wide-open views like that, and you don't even really see the same type of vegetaion.

Good catch. Ad designers should be flogged for their willful ignorance.

Dave said...

You should send a letter to editor of Outside...it might score you some free schwag. :) Good catch!

Anonymous said...

I am a mountain biker from Tennessee. Tennessee doesn't have 1800 miles of mountain bike trails. Closer estimate would be 450 miles total.

See here for a guide containing about ninety percent of Tennessee's mountain bike accessible trails: http://murl.se/21643

Anonymous said...

"Ya'll wanna go fer a ride?" "Them there" "purty". Wow. Way to insult the people of this state. What's wrong with using a stock photo? No, I wouldn't have used a picture of Alaska to promote the state, but still? Companies do it all the time. You really make this Tennessean want to visit Alaska. Arrogant jerk.

Anonymous said...

Just an fyi: it's "y'all", a quaint, and rather lovely, uniquely southern contraction of the words "you" and "all". As a born and bred, wouldn't-live-anywhere-else Southerner (and yes, I've actually ventured outside the south, and the U.S. for that matter, many times!) that mistake is one of my biggest pet peeves. If y'all are gonna mock us, at least get it right!!!

Tim said...

"Y'all" has been fixed. Thanks for pointing out the error. As for anyone offended by my poking fun at the accent, well, grow a sense of humor already, will ya?

Both my parents were born-and-bred southerners. If Mom can take a joke, so can you.

Bro. Byron said...

That was indeed a good catch!
btw...I am a 100% Tennessean, don't worry about offending us about our accents, we sometimes can't even understand our own selves! :)

Anonymous said...

I grew up in Alaska and now live in Tennessee - thanks for throwing egg on our face! heh heh

It is actually really beautiful here (I'm in Chattanooga). But I still try for an biennial Alaska fix.

See ya in July ;-)

daveIT said...

I'm surprised some of those Tennesseans know how to use a 'puter.

Yeeeeeee haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw

Anonymous said...

DaveIT,
Does the IT stand for idiot in training? I hope you wear a helmet I think you've had too many head hits.
signed from,
A computer literate Tennessee 50 yr old.