A rare, authentic mid- to late-70s genuine swizzle stick from the cool, dim interior of the Wheel Bar in downtown Estes Park. Collected on the return leg of a bicycle tour from Boulder to the top of Trail Ridge Road; up by way of Ward, back by way of Lyons.

"What the hell is that?" growled the bartender when he spotted two sweaty guys each carefully bearing...a wheel. (We didn't carry bike locks up Trail Ridge.)

"It's the Wheel Bar, ain't it?" Well, he couldn't argue with that. In those days, the owner of this precious artifact was convinced that the gin-and- tonic was an essential adjunct to cycletouring. (Gin-sing: enough gin and you'd sing, too.) Breakfast was often an orange shandy. That's Brit for o.j. and beer.

A couple of G&Ts did lend a certain elan to the trip down Big Thompson Canyon, but the last of that evaporated on the burning highway between Lyons and Boulder, and our hero arrived home with a splitting headache and...a swizzle stick.