Written by Jim Foreman

~ INTRODUCTION ~

When the original plans go south, it's time to turn to Plan B. That's what happened to the 2001 OBS Grand Tour which was planned to take place in Denver where they have something like 800 miles of bike paths, roads and trails. Seemed like a great idea at the time to stay in one place yet be able to ride any number of routes depending on your whim at the moment. But like so many good ideas, seems that massive indifference took over and only a handful of people responded.

When it became painfully obvious that there would not be enough people to make the idea go, it was scrapped and the Oklahoma Bicycle Society was faced with the possibility that for the first time in about twenty-five years they would not have a Grand Tour.

Gary Cannon was reading a book titled Oklahombres and realized that even though he had lived here most of his life, he didn't know much about Oklahoma's rich history of famous or infamous lawman and outlaws. He began to plot the locations of various gun battles and outlaw hideouts on a map and found that many of them were in easy riding distance of Oklahoma City. He had the basis for a Plan B Tour right here where most of the OBS members live. The beauty of such a tour is that people could start and end the tour from their homes. This would also reduce the cost, complexity and logistics involved in a Grand Tour and it could be organized in the short time available. He and Suzanne got on the phone and soon had their Plan B Tour staff in place.

The tour would be based on the history of the Cowboys, Indians and Outlaws that built the state. The club would have their Grand Tour. Since it had to be scheduled to give people riding the Oklahoma Freewheel a bit of time before the start of the Plan B Tour, it was scheduled to begin in the middle of the week and end on Sunday. A total of 30 people signed on for the tour, which we thought was pretty good considering the short amount of time they had to plan.

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