I met Kujo at the Field House in Forest Park at noon today. The plan was either to do loops in the park or head out to Creve Coeur; however, he said he wanted to see Ferguson. Having lived in Ferguson for nine years I am familiar with the area so did the tour thing. From the park we headed up Pennsylvania, then through Bell Noir to St. Charles Rock Rd. We went north on Lucas and Hunt to Emerson Electric Headquarter and jumped on West Florrisant. We passed the burned out buildings on West Florrisant and what was amazing to both Kujo and I was how many business there are along there and how inconsistent the damage is. Some business were untouched while others were burned to the ground. The housing is mostly small one story ranch like houses and they all seem to be well maintained.......in other words this did not look anything like the ghetto that was portrayed in the news media. We went west on Chambers through Dellwood where there were some stores looted and then to Florrisant Rd, past the police station. The damage on Florrisant Rd. was all confined to the area north of the police station although both police cars that were torched were south of the police station. I took Kujo through the very nice areas of Ferguson and he was very impressed. The very nice new section of old downtown Ferguson was also spared. Most of the businesses that were looted were mom and pop operations, many of which cater to the minority population......doesn't make a lot of sense.
I would not recommend riding those roads on a regular basis, mostly because there is too much traffic that is not used to seeing cyclists on the road. But, at mid day on a Wednesday the traffic was light and the rolling terrain made for a good ride in an historic area.
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