Back to Tennessee, Jed

A 1997 bike race?!

This columnist got a few of the facts wrong, but point taken.

Oops

"Using that photo obviously was a mistake on our part and we regret that."

—Phyllis Qualls-Brooks, Tennessee Department of Tourism

Finally, somebody admits they made a mistake.

All it took was a long day of reading things like this. And this. And this. And ... oh, forget it.

Update

My wife says that if we decide to vacation in Tennessee anytime soon, we're ordering the tourism brochure under a fake name. Since the Tennessean published this story on the contents of yesterday's post, the little photo scandal has hit blogs, forums, websites and news outlets in the viral fashion that only the Internet can create. When I start getting calls from reporters, you know something weird is happening.

Bicycles & Icicles is getting its 15 minutes.

Stay tuned. We will soon return to our regularly scheduled, bike-related silliness.

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.