You don't know what you've got . . .

I'm a big fan of Joni Mitchell, have been since I was in my teens, which - in case you didn't know - is a long time ago now. I'm not even going to play "what's your favorite song" but I will say that one of my favorites is "Big Yellow Taxi" because of the lyrics, part of which is alluded to in the title to this posting. Here's the part of lyric referenced:

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

"Okay, great," you may be saying, "but what's that got to do with anything?"

Well, you see, I was in Austin, TX, last month for the North American Handmade Bicycle Show with a few friends from here in Baton Rouge. One of those friends, Joshua, and I stayed at the Hostel International Austin facility (which I highly recommend). We'd brought our bicycles so we rode to the show together and occasionally ran into each other on the floor of the exhibition area.

During one of those moments when we ran into each other on the exhibition floor he said, "That guy in the booth over there is riding from Austin to New Orleans after the show. Maybe you could offer him a place to stay?"

Now, Joshua is not in the habit of offering other people's things to strangers. It happens that he knows I'm a host on the slightly-unfortunately-named-Web-site Warm Showers, "a hospitality site for touring cyclists." As such, I offer a room, bed or back yard (for adamant campers), shower, laundry, a meal here and there, and a general Haven for touring bicyclists. I'm also happy to provide a local tour of Baton Rouge for those who have the time and inclination. All in all, Joshua's suggestion that I talk to the guy was legit.

I go over, chat with the guy (who turned out to be Jim Powers), decide he's not a flake or sociopath or generally incompatible, and tell him he's welcome if he wants to stop in Baton Rouge on his way to New Orleans. Since there was still a lot to see in the exhibition I went on to other booths and immediately forgot about Jim in a fog of bamboo and stainless steel, S&S couplers and general bicycle awesomeness. Oh man . . . but I digress.

I signed up for Warm Showers back in . . . uh . . . well . . . the site tells me it was 37 weeks and a few days ago so something like May 2010 and didn't get so much as a nibble for months. In fact, the first contact I got came while I was out of town but I had forgotten about Warm Showers and didn't change my status to "unavailable." Even though I was on my way home at the same time as the fellow who contacted me was headed into Baton Rouge, we didn't connect.

A month or so goes by and I get another hit, then another, and another, and . . . well, you get my drift. It turns out there are a fair number of people coming through Baton Rouge and they are all different. By that I mean they all have different motivations, different skill levels, different bicycles (boy howdy do they ride a wide range of bicycles), and, of course, different personalities.

The one thing many of these tourists have in common is the Adventure Cycling Association (ACA) and their awesome route maps. The ACA has created over 20 bicycle tour routes ranging from the Adirondack Park Loop to the Transamerica Route, the Utah Cliffs Loop to the Underground Railroad Route. As it turns out, Baton Rouge is sort of part of the Southern Tier Route that stretches from San Diego, CA, to St Augustine, FL.

Not being a bicycle tourist I was completely unaware of the ACA and their maps, much less that the Southern Tier runs just north of Baton Rouge through St Francisville, LA. That wasn't the only thing I was ignorant of.

It seems the July 2009 revision of the Southern Tier Section 5 map includes this little gem of advice:

"The 26-mile Baton Rouge Spur heads south from St. Francisville to the airport on the north side of Baton Rouge. Local bicyclists do not recommend riding into downtown Baton Rouge, but you can rent a car at the airport to visit New Orleans."

"Local bicyclists do not recommend riding into downtown . . .." Um . . . WHAT?

"The . . . spur heads south . . . to the airport . . .." REALLY?! What do you do then, stuck, as one would be, at the airport???

". . . you can rent a car at the airport to visit New Orleans." OH, of course, skip Baton Rouge, rent an automobile, and cruise in comfort through town on the interstate while flipping off this waste of space known as Baton Rouge. Great, just freakin' wonderful. Thank you anonymous "local bicyclists" for showing your love of your town by telling everyone to just rent a car and skip Baton Rouge to go spend their time and money in New Orleans.

Forget "love," what about taking a moment to show visitors your town. Is there nothing here of interest to you, "local bicyclists," that is worth showing to someone else? Do you, "local bicyclists," fear and loathe this place so much that you would tell hundreds if not thousands of bicycle tourist to NOT COME TO BATON ROUGE? WTF (please pardon my Anglo-Saxon)!

Okay, okay, I'll take a breath and calm down . . . better now? You betcha!

It's true that the most direct route into Baton Rouge from St Francisville is US 61 a.k.a. Scenic Highway. Most of the time, US 61 is anything but scenic passing, as it does pine croplands, a nuclear power plant, a pulp mill, and the ExxonMobil refinery with its associated chemical plants, among other delights. And, yes, that means US 61 is a major truck route for the log trucks and chemical tanker trucks and general truck hauling that is required to restock the various enterprises north of Baton Rouge into Mississippi. Add to that the commuters who just want to get where they are going at 80 miles per hour and it can be a bit daunting.

And, it is true that Scenic Highway starts and ends in a black neighborhood where it dead-ends on Main Street by Magnolia Cemetery, one of the best cemeteries in town if historic cemeteries are your thing. Given the rampant if subtle racism in this place it wouldn't surprise me if that alone was enough for the "local bicyclists" to warn people away.

But none of that should matter. US 61 has shoulders on both sides that are no better or worse than most highway shoulders anywhere else in this country. And as for the neighborhood, well, if you're not there at 2 AM looking for trouble you won't find it and it won't come looking for you.

Because of my Warm Showers hosting I've had over a dozen bicycle tourists come to stay in Baton Rouge and six of them have come down Scenic Highway from St Francisville; not one of those six arrived in urine-soaked bicycle shorts terrified and pale from the experience. Not one has even MENTIONED the ride in until I asked them about it and, even with prodding, the most they've had to say is, "Well, it isn't terribly scenic but it's by far not the worst road I've been on." No one has even noticed the neighborhood.

And a good thing, too.

Baton Rouge isn't heaven, by a long shot, but then, where is? There's a lot here to see and do, great food, beautiful neighborhoods to ride, and an awesome group of local bicyclists who love to ride and are happy to do what they can to assist those passing through.

Maybe we aren't the "local bicyclists" who put the bad ju-ju on Baton Rouge through ACA but we are local bicyclists and we say, "Come on down and pass a good time!"