THE ROANOKE REGION OF VIRGINIA

What’s does a historic steam locomotive have to do with hand-crafted bicycles?

For one Roanoke native, everything.

Meet Aaron Dykstra, a new entrepreneur with throw-back thinking – building customized bicycles that match bike riders to carefully selected materials.

Dykstra founded the Six-Eleven Bicycle Co. after moving back to Roanoke from Chicago, where the life-long bicycle enthusiast worked for a cycling advocacy group and raced on a team.

His quest? Combine performance with artful design to create the ultimate custom steel bicycles.

His inspiration? The Great 611 J-Class steam locomotive. The Roanoke-built 611, which pulled passengers in the 1950s, is a sleek and powerful engine, the last of a kind. It’s now on display at the Virginia Museum of Transportation.

Dykstra’s frames start at $1,500, with a host of available options. Every creation gets stamped with a number signifying a completed bike.

His work is already getting noticed. He received the rookie of the year award at the 2010 Shimano North American Handmade Bicycle Show.

Dykstra is not the region’s only decorated frame builder. Stratton Delaney is the maker of Kazane bike frames.

With his online shop and downtown Roanoke store, he supplies some leading cycling teams with an array of choices.

The Roanoke Region’s greenways, mountain-bike trails and winding roads are luring bike enthusiasts. And that’s spawning a culture of affiliated groups like Sharebike.org, which recycles bikes and advocates this alternative transport. Sharebike gained recognition from the League of American Bicyclists as a bicycle-friendly business.

As interest in bicycling grows, so do events and races that attract riders. One can’t- miss mountain-bike race is the Wednesday Night Disco Race Series, where racers – some may wear spandex to get their freak on, after all – race up and down Mill Mountain.

For people who just can't adjust to wearing regular bifocals or progressive lenses, help is here. Adjustable-focus glasses have a nosepiece slider that let the user adjust the focus for distance, intermediate or near vision. Optometrists say the glasses work well but they are far from fashionable.
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Presbyopia, which typically starts in the early-to-mid 40s, is an aging of the eye's lens that results in an inability to focus on nearby objects. Symptoms are blurred vision, a tendency to hold reading material at arm's length and headaches when doing close work.

Options for treating it include reading glasses, bifocals and progressive lenses, which provide a progression of lens powers without a visible line. Lenses that combine reading and distance prescriptions often require users to point or tilt their head for optimal vision, optometrists say. Many people are happy with bifocals and progressives, but others never adjust to having to look through a narrow area of the lens for optimal vision.

A new type of eyeglass called TruFocals, sold by Zoom Focus Eyewear LLC of Van Nuys, Calif., allows users to manually focus the entire lens. The glasses contain two lenses—a normal distance prescription on the outside and behind it, a flexible plastic lens filled with a clear optical fluid. As the user moves the slider the pressure on the fluid changes, altering its shape. When the slider is at the far left, reading magnification is off and distance vision is optimized. As it is moved to the right, reading magnification increases.

TruFocals cost $895 on the Web with a 30-day free trial, and are also available from a small number of optometrists. So far, there are no published clinical trials on the glasses. Optometrists who have seen them give them high reviews on function, but they also say many clients won't like the Harry Potter-like frames, the design of which Zoom Focus says is needed for optimum vision quality. "If you are looking strictly for functionality, it is a great solution," says Chris Stanwick, a Belpre, Ohio, optometrist who sold two pairs.

The adjustability is particularly useful for computer work—where bifocals and progressives tend to force users to tilt their head to get into the sweet spot of the lens, says Boston-area optometrist David S. Greenstein, who bought a pair for himself that he is showing to customers. TruFocals also solve the annoying problem of being forced to use the reading portion every time you look down. For this reason, walking down stairs or stepping off curbs can be troublesome with bifocals and progressives, Dr. Stanwick says. And golfers who want to see the ball clearly while looking down but need readers to see their score card can also benefit, optometrists say.

People who may find them useful are diabetics, whose vision can change slightly daily, and mechanics or electricians, who need magnification when looking up. NASA is evaluating them for use in space flights since astronauts must be able to focus while looking in any direction. "The optics are crystal clear," says C. Robert Gibson, a senior optometrist at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

I tested the glasses at Dr. Greenstein's office while wearing contact lenses, but without a distance lens. The glasses were easy to use to read small print on an aspirin bottle, but adjusting them called for two hands—one to adjust the slider and one to hold on to the glasses. Zoom Focus says experienced users can do it one-handed and that the focusing becomes automatic with time.

The fashion-conscious might want to wait for PixelOptics Inc.'s new electronic glasses, which will be available nationally in early 2011, with a choice of more than 20 frames. The glasses, expected to cost about $1,000 to $1,200, will be like regular progressives but with a switch on the side of the frame that lets users turn off the reading lens to gain a larger intermediate-vision zone, the Roanoke, Va., company says.

The downside: They contain a small battery that must be charged by placing the glasses on a charging tray every two or three days.

By Laura Joannes

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A night at the Hotel Roanoke, a.k.a. 'The Grand Old Lady'

"The Grand Old Lady," as the Hotel Roanoke is known, has been around for as long as Roanoke has been called Roanoke, which is to say, for nearly 130 years. (The former railroad town in southwest Virginia was originally called Big Lick. How fortunate for the hotel that someone decided on a name change.) Perched on a hill overlooking the city, the Tudor-style building towers over everything around it and has rightly earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places.

So it seemed very apropos that a piano was playing when I arrived for a recent overnight. Elegant, I thought. Until I realized that it was a player piano. That was the only tacky feature in an otherwise grand lobby decorated with Czech-made chandeliers, marble floors, wood-paneled walls and brown leather chairs.

Built in 1882 by railroad magnate Frederick J. Kimball, the hotel started as a resting place for railroaders passing through town. But since a few multimillion-dollar renovations and expansions, including an ongoing one that began in 2007, it has been the place to stay for any visitors to Roanoke. Guests have included U.S. presidents, Virginia governors, theater and sports stars and -- my personal favorite -- Miss Virginia contestants. In fact, the first Miss Virginia Pageant was held at the hotel in 1953, and pictures of a couple of the winners hang on the wall in one wing. I was happy to join such an illustrious group of guests.

When I checked in, the friendly clerk handed me a chocolate chip cookie. Good thing I had the treat, because the trip to my room took longer than I expected. The building has so many wings that it's easy to get lost, and I did. Fortunately, there were plenty of employees along the way willing to direct me toward my destination.

My recently renovated room was spacious, even if the "Sweet Dreams" pillow on the bed was a bit corny. The bathroom had a nice touch: Neutrogena facial wash. That was a novelty. I liked the way the room preserved the hotel's traditional look -- the vanity cabinet in the bathroom looked like an antique -- but still had modern touches, such as a flat-screen TV.

Although I hadn't requested it, I ended up in a Club Level room. That entitled me to a free happy hour in.... Read the Rest of the story Here>>>

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