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Mike Magnuson wants the bicycling enthusiasts of the Roanoke Valley to know he did not deliberately leave Roanoke out of his story in the current issue of Bicycling Magazine.

Magnuson had only 3,000 words to tell about a five-day group bicycle tour he took on the scenic, 469-mile Blue Ridge Parkway in August.

There were so many things to write about he could not include them all -- not even the largest city on the parkway.

An English professor at Southern Illinois University as well as a novelist and a die-hard cyclist, Magnuson, 43, wasn't doing the traditional travel piece anyway.

He was doing something he jocularly equates to the New Journalism practiced for decades by the late Hunter S. Thompson and the living Tom Wolfe. He was describing people, telling stories and, in the process, praising the parkway.

"You would be hard-pressed to find a better cycling road in the whole world," he wrote in his story, titled "The Heavenly Blues."

Different approach

That was not enough to erase the disappointment of some of Roanoke's dedicated cyclists. Some sent e-mails telling Bicycling what Magnuson missed.

But Magnuson already knew about the cycling opportunities around here.

When he writes for Bicycling, he doesn't worry about demographic info or other facts and figures.

"I'm allowed free artistic rein, I guess," he said in a phone call. "Whenever they run one of my articles they put things I leave out in sidebars."

Whoever produced the graphics for his piece made some ludicrous choices.

Instead of the Star City, the map of the trip's second day showed Stuart, Martinsville, Rocky Mount, Blacksburg, Salem, Bedford, New Castle and Fincastle.

All of those places are smaller than and farther from the parkway than Roanoke, which long has thirsted for more tourists from the road.

High expectations

Just as bad, in the local view, was the sidebar titled "Get Off Your Bike." It listed only Virginia's Explore Park in Roanoke County and Smith Mountain Lake for Roanoke-area attractions.

If the story had appeared in the magazine by surprise, the cyclists might not have been disappointed.

But they knew Magnuson was coming.

The bike club and the Roanoke Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau tried to set up a tour for him prior to his ride, but things didn't work out.

He didn't want the PR tour anyway.

"That makes me obligated to something I shouldn't be obligated to," he said. "I do art more than science."

Besides, he had been here. He has participated more than once in the annual Mountains of Misery ride in Giles and Craig counties.

"Some of the greatest cycling in the world is right there," he said. "Any place where it doesn't snow too much and you have a lot of hills and great rural roads."

When I first e-mailed Magnuson, he seemed surprised that anyone in Roanoke had an issue with the story.

"Now that I'm feeling guilty and stuff," he told me the next day, "I remember coming through there. I remember it was real nice, real open in some of the spots. I could see Roanoke off to my right."

He had high praise for the Woodberry Inn in Floyd County. It was one of the hotels where the group of 13 cyclists stayed.

"We were right across from Chateau Morrisette, which has really good wine," Magnuson said.

That's the flavor of his piece -- how a college professor and his friends rode the hills by day and played guitars and sang songs and watched bad movies on cable TV at night.

And that is exactly what many a recreational vacation consists of.

Catherine Fox, tourism director for the convention and visitors bureau, expressed no disappointment with Magnuson's piece -- though she may well have felt some.

"We take this particular publicity very positively," she said, "because it remarks positively on the Blue Ridge Parkway, which we are a major part of."