For Immediate Release: July 15, 2002

"Bicycling Comedian" Opens Las Vegas Comedy Festival

Comedian Tom Snyders left Las Vegas, Nev., by bicycle on June 20, 1987. Since then, he has been pedaling the backroads of this country on his "Smile America Bicycle Comedy Tour" -- performing at more than 200 comedy clubs and arriving at all of them by bicycle.

On August 4, Snyders will leave New York City on his fully-loaded (and then some) touring bicycle to pedal across the George Washington Bridge. Draped over the packs on the back of his bike will be a banner reading, "Las Vegas Comedy Festival or Bust!"

With 15 years, 116,500 miles and 49 states already under his tires, Snyders will pedal across the United States one last time, climbing over several mountain ranges and enduring Utah and Nevada desert heat.

Snyders' arrival in Las Vegas on September 4 will signal the opening of the Las Vegas Comedy Festival and the ending of an incredible, 15-year bike trip -- a journey that will have come full circle after a mere 120,000 miles of pedaling.

Snyders has made nine national television appearances, including three on "Live with Regis & Kathie Lee." He has also appeared on Comedy Central and ESPN. Tom was a featured performer at the "Just For Laughs" International Comedy Festival in Montreal, Canada.

In August 2000, Snyders left Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, on his bike and pedaled the 6,100 miles to Key West, Fla. That would have been a lifetime adventure for anyone else, but for Snyders, a comedian/adventurer who takes the term "road work" literally, it was simply an interesting two months within an incredible, ongoing, 15-year bike trip.

On this journey Snyders has also: been attacked by a police dog; pedaled up a mountain in the middle of a raging snow storm; looked a grizzly bear in the eye from 15 feet away; been run out of town by local police in Georgia and tried to figure out how to possibly have a steady relationship while on the road for 15 years.

Snyders also spent four days in a coma and on a respirator at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles after having been hit by an elderly driver and dragged 30 feet. "Apparently he didn't think I'd had enough yet, so he then backed up over me," Snyders says.

Snyders' specialty has become taking color slides of weird road signs from the back roads of America. He now has a collection of over 6,000 -- the best of these are featured in his live performances using a slide projector and a large screen. Snyders explains, "I'm off the interstate and not going by things at 60 miles an hour, so I see a lot of strange stuff. Some of it's incredibly funny, and I always keep my camera loaded with color slide film. After 15 years, I have the ultimate collection of pictures of funny road signs."

Snyders has also written a screenplay -- coincidentally, it's about a comedian who travels around the country to all his stand-up comedy performances by bicycle trying to get on the Tonight Show or Letterman. "I don't know how I come up with this stuff," Snyders jokes.

As Snyders likes to say, "It's not just a comedy show -- it's an adventure!"

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