Old 04-13-09, 10:30 PM
  #10  
Sirrus Rider
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Location: Houston, Texas
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Bikes: '88 Specialized Sirrus, '89 Alpine Monitor Pass, two '70 Raligh Twenties, '07 Schwinn Town & Country Trike, '07 Specialized Sirrus Hybrid

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Originally Posted by Hydrated
You may be a Fred... but none of us will ever be THE Fred.

The Fred was Fred Birchmore from Athens, Georgia... an adventurer who rode his single speed bicycle around the world back in the mid 1930's. (Extra credit for anyone who knows why he named his bike "Bucephalus"). During his bike trip, he was reputed to be the first white man to make it out of Afghanistan alive since Marco Polo. He also hiked the Appalachian Trail and the Inca Trail in Peru both solo.

One of his most famous incidents came in South America during his bicycle circumnavigation. He apparently was penniless and starving out in the jungle... until he came upon a huge snake. He killed and ate the snake, skinned it and sold the skin at a village for enough cash to get him further down the road. Check Amazon for the books that he wrote about his adventures.

His marks still show in his hometown of Athens, GA in a massive stone wall that he built by hand when Fred was in his 70's... a wall 14 feet high in some places and dug 4 feet into the ground.

Here's to Fred:
Damn! Check out the size of the bottlegen!
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