Postings from Gov. Brad Henry's "Edge" commission

This is the Govenor's commission on dealing with Oklahoma's economy.
Obviously many don't agree with the ideas getting presented here.


Jim Allshouse
Guest User


11/03/2003 17:24:56
In the fall of 1997 my wife and I stayed at a B&B in Augusta, Missouri. The owners gave us the use of their bicycles for the afternoon. We rode from Augusta to Defiance, which is 8 miles on the KATY Trail. We had so much fun that we came home, purchased bikes and made plans to ride the whole trail in the spring of 1998.

We became members of the Oklahoma Bicycle Society and trained for our upcoming trip by riding to Brown’s Bakery from Will Rogers Park every Saturday morning.

In 1998 we rode from Columbia, Missouri to St. Charles for a total of 150 miles. We asked my wife’s mother and friend from Wyoming to join us for the weeklong trip. We stayed in B& B’s every night in the small towns along the way. When we rode into St. Charles, we took a car back to our starting point. The two of us spent $1650 for that weeklong trip and I’m certain the other couple spent a like amount.

In 1999, we again made plans to ride the Katy with cycling friends from here in Oklahoma and a couple from Wyoming. This time eight of us met in Sedalia, Missouri to ride for 5 days to our destination of St. Charles. We revisited many of the past overnight stops and discovered a few new B & B’s. Upon arriving in St. Charles we spent the night before riding back to Washington, Missouri to catch Amtrak for the return trip to Sedalia. We had ridden a total of 260 miles. The money spent for the two of us on that trip was $1400 with the other three couples spending a similar amount.

For 2001 we made a trip to South Dakota’s Mickelson Trail. This trail is another Rails to Trails route. My wife’s cousin lives in Rapid City and he was our guide for a ride from Deadwood to Edgemont and back to Deadwood again. One couple from Wyoming joined us. We rode 5 days for a total of 250 miles and spent $1000. The Wyoming couple would have spent about the same.

In April of 2002, a group of 12 riding buddies from the Oklahoma Bicycle Society went to Mineral Wells, Texas to ride another Rails to Trails. We spent the weekend camping in the Mineral Wells State Park. We had a great weekend and will go back again this spring. The park was extremely clean with excellent bathrooms and shower facilities. There is an on-line reservation system, that we were able to secure our camp spot before we had ever entered the park. We were told that the Texas state park people went to Missouri’s Katy Trail to see how their successful Rails to Trails program works. Using the experience of Missouri, Texas was able to build a VERY nice trail. Plans are in place to make the trail longer as time goes, we were told. At the present time it is about 20 miles long. We rode from Mineral Wells to Weatherford, TX for lunch and then back to camp. Our weekend costs were $150.00 but with 5 other couples, it starts adding up.

September 2003 found my wife and I on a self-contained bicycle trip on the Katy Trail in Missouri again. We rode from Clinton, Missouri to St. Charles and then back to Clinton. We took 2 weeks to ride the 502 miles. We stayed at different B&B’s coming and going in order to spread our travel dollars among all the small communities we love riding through. I always asked what percentage of the B & B’s revenue was made up from people using the Katy trail. I was told anywhere from 70 to 100 % and they figured about 30,000 riders rode from one end to the other. Those little towns get a lot of revenue that they wouldn’t normally receive if the Katy Trail did not exist. A few of the farmers don’t like the trail, but attitudes have improved every time we have visited the area. For two weeks our expenditures ran $2300.

I feel Oklahoma is missing the boat in this area. People from other states would come here to ride year around. Our small towns would have a better revenue base if the trail came thru their towns. I know it costs money for up keep of the trail but Missouri and Texas would have good ideas on where to start the process.

Oklahoman’s obesity problem might be helped if more recreational trails were made available. The popularity of the Hefner Park project seems to be much more popular than the city projected. With the building of trails close to home, more Oklahomans would discover a healthier way of living. They might invite their out of state friends and relatives to visit and Discover Oklahoma!

Jim and Laurie Allshouse
allshouseji@lsb.state.ok.us
Jim0740@cox.net
Laurie0740@cox.net


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rrdenard
Guest User


11/08/2003 18:03:45
So a fattie is sitting at home thinking, I would go biking and lose wait if only the state provided more bicycle trails?

Do you really believe that lack of taxpayer-financed bike trails is the cause of obesity among Oklahomans?
Bill Bauer
Guest User


11/10/2003 00:07:53
I can remember when I was a kid on a bicycle. In the summer time I used to sell Earl May seed corn to all the neighborhood farmers. I had a whole county to sell seed corn in. The county was 36 miles square. I would go out early in the mornings on my bike and before the summer was out I traveled every road in the whole county selling
seed corn. And I sold a lot of it, but I'd keep track of how far I rode every day and at the end of the summer I would have averaged about 36 miles a day and I sure didn't have any fancy 10 speed bike to do it on either.
Just a little kid's bike.

Does anybody think that the reason I am still thin is because I rode that bike for so many miles or was it because we ate good nutricious meals and didn't have any junk food sellers like McDonald's to get fat on?

Bike trails might be nice, but I sure didn't have any back then and we don't really need them now either.

We got nice bike trails right here in town and nobody uses them much but they sure burned up a ton of money putting them in. More taxpayer money down the drain.  ¶ 11:31 PM