Dry or Wet? We Ride for BBQ in Memphis

National Geographic recently ranked the "ten best BBQ joints in America."  Four of the top ten places for great BBQ were in the two cities synonymous with that fall-off-the-bone goodness: Kansas City and Memphis.  According to the NatGeo rankings, the best BBQ in the country is at Corky’s in Memphis (three locations to choose from just in Memphis with more in surrounding states).

Beale Street, Memphis

The SBT visited the Corky’s website and clicked on the dinners portion of the online menu.  One word describes what we read: unbelievable.  For under $10 diners can enjoy a variety of meals.  And we mean meals.  When we underline something that means we’re serious.  Corky’s makes their own rubs, seasonings, sauces and even batters for their deep friend selections.  It’s a proprietary secret but you don’t need to know how to build a clock to tell time and we don’t know what is in the secret ingredients but the result is flavor.  That’s good cooking.  Corky’s opened in 1984 and since that time has been voted the number-one BBQ joint in Memphis an amazing 22 times.  In baseball terms that is like batting 22 for 29—a .758 batting average.  This is in a town that has over 100 BBQ restaurants.  They are hitting the cover off the ball.  

What could possibly be a better meal than a $9.99 BBQ beef brisket dinner that is “slow-cooked and perfectly seasoned, sliced thick and covered in sauce.”  Now the SBT understands the competing forces that lock horns over dry rub versus wet sauce.  We appreciate the fact that Corky’s calls it a tie and gives hungry people both.  Forget about a bike ride to the place, we may crawl on our hands and knees.  Everything BBQ at Corky's is slow-cooked over hickory wood and/or charcoal.  

If you can fit some takeout somewhere on your bike do it.  Try taking home an onion loaf.   It is a meal of deep fried sweet onions formed into a loaf of bread and served with special sauce (and the sauce isn’t just repackaged Thousand Island dressing). 

Let’s pause the taste buds for a second.  Before we reach for the handi-wipes, we, as good bike riders need to explore Memphis a bit.  One of the fastest growing cities, not just in the south, but in the United States, Memphis is home to Elvis, the Blues, and FedEx.  

  

Let’s start our bike ride in Tom Lee Park (pictured).  The sprawling Mississippi Riverbank park memorializes the brave Tom Lee, an African American waterman who personally rescued scores of people from a capsized riverboat in 1925.  Each May the park hosts Memphis in May, a month of activities that includes the Beale Street Music Fest, International Week, the Sunset Symphony, and the World Championship BBQ Contest, the largest cooking competition in the world.  

A bike ride should leave Lee Park bound for Corky’s Poplar Street location.  From the center of Lee Park head upstream along Riverside Drive to Beale Street of course.  No trip to Memphis should miss Beale.  Turn onto South Main Street at the Elvis statue and proceed down to the Lorriane Hotel.  The second floor of the Lorraine was the location of the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination.  Today the hotel is part of the National Civil Rights Museum and should not be missed.   At this point the ride is only at two miles.  If you would like to ride in traffic take Poplar Street to Corky’s, it is about 11 miles.  We suggest avoiding traffic and from the museum head to Florida Street.  Take Florida south to E. McLemore which becomes Southern Avenue.  Southern is a straight line ride to the Memphis Botanic Garden.  Go around all the pretty plants to Park Avenue.  Park leads to White Station Road which takes you to Poplar.  Take a right, Corky’s is on the right.  It’s about a 15 miles ride.  Call a cab for the trip back to Lee Park, you’ll be too stuffed to ride.

The Marc Cohn song “Walking in Memphis” captures the essence of the city, we have it on our website, www.stickybottleteam.net.   

We all came out to Montreux, for a bike ride...

The Melting Pot.  America is the world’s melting pot with nearly 400 years of immigration.  People of German ancestry make up the largest portion of America followed by Mexican and African peoples.  The remaining bulk of Americans are immigrants from Ireland, England, Poland and Scandinavia.  Interestingly enough, one of the smallest groups of inhabitants are Native Americans.  In Europe a similar ancestry mix occurs in Switzerland.  The Swiss have people with not only a non-Swiss nativity but also a different language.  Most of Switzerland speaks German but in the west, French dominates and in the south it is Italian.  In other parts the Romansh language is spoken—an eclectic mix of Latin and Italian. The predominately French Western Switzerland is known as the Romandie region.  The region has been the focus of the cycling world this week with the annual Tour de Romandie.

The Tour wraps up today with a Time Trial in Geneva.  Most of the route follows the Lake Geneva shoreline.  Lake Geneva is the largest body of water in Switzerland and is one of the largest lakes in Europe so there is plenty of shoreline.  It makes for a great bike ride providing stunning views of a snow-capped Mont Blanc in France.  Lake Geneva and its shoreline was introduced to the rest of the world in 1967 with the first Montreux Jazz Festival.  In that first year Ella Fitzgerald was one of the headliners.  Over the years the festival welcomed other acts and genres with Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and Santana playing inside the first Montreux Casino.  A second Montreux Casino was opened in 1975.

In 1971 the original casino, built in 1881, burned to the ground.  The last live act to take the stage was Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.  To get the best history of the Montreux Casino fire head back to your parent’s house, climb the attic stairs and search through the old milk crate of records.  Remember records?  We also called them albums.  In that stack of warped vinyl should be the classic album Machine Head by English band Deep Purple.   The first song of side two was “Smoke on the Water” and it captures the story of the night the Montreux Casino burned down.

The fire began with “Frank Zappa and the Mothers” and “Some stupid with a flare gun, burned the place to the ground.”   While the Mother’s were playing, a fan in the audience fired a flare gun at the stage that then caught the ceiling on fire.  “They burned down the gambling house, it died with an awful sound.”  Deep Purple was in Montreux recording an album using a mobile recording studio borrowed from the Rolling Stones or as they say in the song “The Rolling truck Stones thing.”  The band relocated after the fire.  “We ended up at the Grand Hotel, it was empty cold as hell.”   Ian Gillan, the band’s raspy voiced lead singer remembered the scene as being “Smoke on the water, fire in the sky.”  Machine Head was released in 1972 and became a top ten album in the UK and the States for 20 straight weeks.  To date the album has reached over three million in worldwide sales.

Today the Montreux Jazz festival takes place over two weeks each July.  The area still makes important contributions to music.  The Mountain Recording Studio was the creation of the late Freddie Mercury, a Montreux resident, and is a popular venue for musician and bands looking to record.  A statue of Mercury stands in downtown Montreux overlooking the lake.  A number of bicycle-only paths can be found along the Lake Geneva Shoreline.  Enjoy!

For a video of "Smoke on the Water" visit www.stickybottleteam.net.  Scroll down to the VIDEO block.  Thanks.

Bike Riding with Pollen

The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA) has just released their 2013 Allergy Season Report.  At the top of the report is the all-important Pollen Score.  Three things contribute to pollen: airborne grasses, trees, and weeds.  Also contributing to our sneezing and sniffling: mold spores.

The AAFA also released their annual “Allergy Capitals” list of American cities with the worst pollen scores.  When it comes to pollen and mold look south.  The top three allergy capitals are #3 Chattanooga, Tennessee; #2 Knoxville, Tennessee; and #1 Jackson, Mississippi.  The southern states are warmer so the growing season is longer meaning pollen stays in the air for most of the year.  Springtime pollen is everywhere in most of the country.

All of the pollen, mold, and other irritants force our bodies to react.  And some bodies react better than others.  Some people on the other hand have a difficult time just being outside.  The body combats pollen, mold and others by producing histamine.  For some folks the histamine is a controlled natural release, for others the release is a hyper over-reaction which leads to watery eyes, sneezing, runny nose, pressure headaches and the like. 

The best and easiest way to avoid pollen is by staying inside.  But for bike riders this is difficult, we have been cooped up riding indoors for months or bundling up and riding in cold temps.  We want to get out in warm weather and pound the pedals on our favorite roads.  No matter where you are in the States right now you are dealing with pollen.  Allergists recommend that for people with allergies who need to be outside in pollen season the best thing to do to fight back is with a nasal spray.  That’s right—flood the old honker with a salt water nasal spray.  The stuff is not a drug nor is it a medicine so it is easy to take before and after a ride.  The salt gets into the little nooks and crannies of your beak and rinses out anything that is trapped up there.  If that doesn’t help, you may be a candidate for Claritin or Allegra (follow the package instructions).  Beyond that you may need to see an allergist.  He or she may prescribe weekly allergy shots.

One thing that may also help during the high points of allergy season is more frequent cleaning and changing of your bed sheets.  All of that pollen, and everything else that you encounter during your day, collects on your body and at night it ends up in bed with you.  

Some familiarity with the worst allergy-inducing plants may help.  Here are the top ten offenders:

Ragweed (pictured):  There are 17 different types of the stuff out there, it is tough to avoid.

Bermuda Grass: Common on golf courses and sports fields.  If you mow it wear a mask.

Maple Trees: Pretty common species.

Mountain Cedar: Found mostly in Texas and Oklahoma.

Rye Grass: All grasses have pollen but rye is a double threat because mold spores love it.

Elm Trees: We will trade the pollen for the cooling shade they provide. 

Mulberry Trees: An invasive species to America.  Originally from China, the Mulberry provided the best environment for silk worms.  Mulberry trees are essentially weeds so chop them down. 

Pecan Trees: The pollen these trees produce are some of the largest spores out there and they can clog you up quick.

Pigweed: Found mostly in the western US.  It’s pigweed that forms the big rolling tumbleweeds seen in nearly every old Western movie.

The worst pollen producer is the Oak Tree.  Oaks don’t just rely on birds and insects for pollination and reproduction like some trees.  They are also self-pollinators so they also extract pollen in order to make it airborne in an effort to further the reproductive process.  It is also another large grain pollen.

So, back to Jackson, Mississippi…  The capital of the Magnolia State is #1 because it has every one of the top ten plants for pollen.  Plus the hot humid and long summer season keeps the offenders suspended in the air for months.  For a ride of Jackson we suggest the routes along the Pearl River and maybe go in October and stay for the annual Mississippi State Fair.  One of the biggest state fairs in the country, the midway is over one mile in length.  

Visit our website www.stickybottleteam.net for bike reviews, product reviews, the Craft Beer of the Week, pictures, videos and more.  Follow us on Twitter at @SBTnetUSA.

Springtime on Campus. Bring your Bike.

In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of…

Bicycle Thievery.

That’s correct, forget about love and happiness.  Bike theft is rampant each and every spring.  And it’s not in the inner cities.  Most bike thefts occur on college campuses.  To everything there is a season and each spring a seasonal uptick in bikes being snatched from unsuspecting students is realized across America’s bastions of higher education. 

The simple reason for thefts in spring is the warm weather meaning more bikes are on campus.  The thieves come out at night and they strike mostly on weekends.  The next pattern shows that bikes are stolen within a close proximity of each other.  Last and most sadly, they are never recovered.  They end up in river beds, at the bottom of frog ponds, or they simply become the property of whoever stole it in the first place.

College bikes are not exactly top of the line Cervelo’s.  They are the bike from the student’s youth that was discarded to the dusty section of the garage right next to the bubble hockey game that took up too much space and was missing a defenseman.  Taking the old machine to college seemed like a good idea.  Maybe someday the bubble hockey game will get fixed...

Bicycle theft is usually reported to the campus police.  After lending a concerned ear and a display of thoughtful concern, the trail immediately goes cold.  Campus cops feel they have more important things to do than search for a bleary-eyed college student’s 20 year old Huffy with a resale value of $10. 

Sometimes the bikes aren’t even stolen; they were simply borrowed for a ride home.  It wasn’t necessarily a bike thief doing the “borrowing,” just a guy with a foggy mind after an evening with Newcastle Brown (it can sure knock you down).  Bikes are just moved from one part of campus only to be found the next day in another.  Nothing sinister.   Nothing requiring thirty days in the hole.   

In most cases the students don’t do enough to protect their property.  The most common attempt to safeguard their rusting machine is with a lock and chain (easily cut through) or the rider removes the saddle thinking that no one would steal a bike without a seat (not understanding that the new owner could simply buy a new saddle).  Some schools have investigated the smart idea of placing security cameras at bike rack locations but after perusing the price tag for such prevention the idea doesn’t seem as brilliant. 

Colleges have begun programs that allow bike owning students to register their machines with the campus police.  The student then receives a registration sticker that is then affixed to the frame.  The result is that just as many registered bikes get stolen as non-registered machines.  The sticker does very little except stick.  It does not shoot mace into the eyes of thieves nor does it deliver a numbing jolt of electricity. 

The best advice is to lock bikes inside a dorm, house, or apartment.  If the bike is being left outside the rider should lock the frame to both wheels and remove anything that cannot be locked.  Short of that then we suggest a good pair of walking shoes and familiarity with the campus bus routes.  

Please visit our website at www.stickybottleteam.net

Do this...

...to avoid a watery end.

Back to the Salt Mines... on your Bike

“Back to the salt mines.”  The saying refers to going back to work at a job that is taxing, tiring, without reward.  It is derived from an old Russian practice of sending re-offending convicts not back to jail but into the salt mines of Siberia.  Apparently the cold Russian salt mines did more to rehabilitate prisoners than three hots and a cot. 

Salt, as the world knows, is one of earth’s most naturally occurring and useful minerals.  The stuff has been part of recipes since we first crawled forth from the primordial ooze.  It wasn’t long before pre-historic man grunted “pass the salt.”  It was the world’s original food preservative.  Today, a dry-aged in salt cut of beef is one of life’s pleasures (although sea salt is the salt of choice for dry aging beef). 

The salt mines still exist and workers still find themselves saying, “Back to the salt mines.”  Where that can be said and heard most is in Cleveland, Ohio—or rather under Cleveland, Ohio.  That is where, if you go down 1,800 feet and then three miles out under Lake Erie, you will find the largest salt mine on earth.  First opened by the aptly named International Salt Company in 1961, the mine has been operated by Cargill since 1997.  The mine is part of the centuries old Great Eastern Salt Basin formed 300 million years ago when a long lost ancient sea evaporated.  Tons of salt are retrieved from the mine daily.  The Cargill salt division has expanded with new mines in Avery Island, Louisiana and Lansing, New York.  

If it is a real salt mine you are after, a salt mine that is literally of museum quality then get out of Cleveland.  Head to Poland.  And bring your bike.  First stop: Krakow (or Cracow), a city dating back to the Stone Age.  Sometime in the 13^th century a main square was constructed and from that Krakow began to take shape.  Today nearly eight million people live within 100 kilometers of the Main Square, the largest in Europe.    Much of medieval Krakow remains.  Unlike other parts of Poland, Krakow survived the Second World War due to the fact that it was used as the seat of government for the occupying Axis forces.   Krakow’s many significant structures are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.  A bike ride of Krakow is a flat tour of a rather compact city.  The Vistula River offers an easy bike path.  Old Town Krakow is restricted to automobile traffic so bikers can pedal with ease.  Much of what you will see in Old Town was built before 1596, after that date the Polish capital was moved from Krakow to Warsaw (Warszawa) slowing construction.

Now that you have ridden in Krakow it is time to get to the salt mines.  Just outside the city is the Wieliczka Salt Mine.  Opened in the 13^th century the mine produced table salt to 2007.  For about $25 USD tourists get a 3-hour tour of the underground labyrinth, filled with dozens of tunnels and chambers.  The mine is one of Poland’s national treasures.  Once inside, stunning works of art carved from the gray salt formations include religious depictions of the last supper, various saints and Krakow’s Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II).  A dramatic chandelier of rock salt hangs in the St. Kinga (the patron saint of miners) Chapel section of the mine.  Mass is still held there today.  The ride to the mine along the Wielicka Road is just over 8 miles one way.   

Visit our website for a short video of the Wieliczka mine at www.stickybottleteam.net.

Everything that is not a human tourist is salt

Krakow's Main Square