Word: bike
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...looks like an overbuilt bicycle, sounds like an impatient teakettle and, in fact, combines pedal power with petroleum push. Called a moped (from motor-plus-pedals), the motorized bike is catching on rapidly in the U.S. as a practical, inexpensive form of short-haul transportation for commuters, students, the elderly and fresh-air lovers out for a spin-not to mention the suburban housewife who is reluctant to drive a gas-guzzling, nine-passenger station wagon two miles for a can of tuna. Since it whirs along on a two-stroke minimotor with less horsepower than a power mower, goes...
...pedal, less if you're heavy in the saddle). They are easy to maintain and emit almost no noxious fumes. Since they have automatic transmission, it should take only ten minutes' instruction to learn to operate them. They give a much smoother ride than a bike. Moreover, they are within almost anyone's budget, ranging from around $300 for the simplest model to more than $500 for one with all the trimmings, including telescopic front suspension, independent rear shock absorbers and speedometer...
...picturesque, somewhat historic, largely traffic-free, and not overly demanding route. Since crossing deserts is hazardous, the western end of the trail was kept wen to the north. The North Central plains tend toward macadam monotony, so the route drops south to skirt the Ozarks. To avoid urban sprawl, Bike-centennial is a Baedeker of back roads...
...route has been marked with special signs, and at intervals no more than a day's journey (roughly 50 miles) apart, there are specially reserved campgrounds and bike inns. The bike inns are usually borrowed churches, college dormitories and school gymnasiums, where inexpensive meals, a bed and shower can be had, but a few are splendidly exotic. Two favorites: a gristmill in Kentucky and a marble-adorned Victorian-era hotel in Sinclair...
Despite the elaborate logistics, the road through '76 is not all downhill. A couple of campers in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia awoke one morning to find a bike had been stolen; they found it a few hundred feet away under a bush, badly mauled by a bear that had wanted the food in the saddlebag. A party of cyclists in southern Wyoming hit a late spring snowstorm and had to be rescued. Contaminated water made bikers sick at three campgrounds in Idaho...