
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, September 2, 1993                   TAG: 9309020210
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Newport News Daily Press
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS                                LENGTH: Short

NO WEATHER DELAYS FOR THIS CYCLIST

Mark Jones, the cross-country bicyclist who endured one of the tornadoes that hit Virginia in August by lashing himself and his bike to a tree, has pedaled into another disaster.

Nearly four weeks after the tornado, Jones bicycled right into the teeth of Hurricane Emily.

"It happened again," Jones, 33, said Tuesday night. "I'm caught in another storm. I can't believe this. Storms follow me to the left and right."

Jones, who has been up to New York and back through Washington, D.C., since he left Newport News, biked into Elizabeth City, N.C., Monday morning. He decided he ought to pull over when he heard reports of the approaching storm.

This time, he wisely decided to seek shelter.

"This storm was gonna be a lot worse than that tornado," Jones reasoned from a shelter in Williamston, N.C., where he and others were moved after the Elizabeth City shelter closed. "I was very lucky in that tornado."

Jones, a Fort Yukon, Ala., trail guide, has bicycled 8,000 miles in seven months as part of a cross-country trek. Earlier this summer, he crossed the Mississippi River just as flood waters were close to cresting.

He planned to return to the Outer Banks as soon as today, then head down the coast. Eventually, he will go to Florida, then ride west to California and back up to Alaska - a trip he said will take another 18 months to two years, come hell or high water.

by CNB