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Here's the punch line: 200 miles from the venue, Snyder found out that that club burned down. Luckily, the comedy club circuit was booming. He just biked to the next gig.

"I didn't think I'd be on the bike so long," he said. "But the other comics said it was such a great gimmick, and it just worked out."

For a while, he jokingly tried to sell billboard space on his handlebars, posting a "Your Ad Here" sign, space that Drew Carey once offered to buy.

At 43, Snyder is still biking most of the year, although he's got a winter place in Key West, and he's just released a photo collection of curious road signs in National Lampoon's Big Book of True Facts.

Among Snyder's favorite signs: "Die Seven Miles Ahead" on a road near Die, Pa., and a posting that can be found outside several prisons: "Warning! Hitchhikers May Be Escaped Inmates."

4. Lawn Mower Man Ready for Another Cut

You'd think that people would learn your name once you've become the first man to cross the country twice on a lawn mower. Nevertheless, lawn legend Brad Hauser is not the guy who was featured in the David Lynch movie The Straight Story.

In 1999, Richard Farnsworth earned an Oscar nomination for his role in that film, based on the story of a 73-year-old man who drives his lawn mower from Laurens, Iowa, to Mount Zion, Wis., to visit his dying brother.

That same year, Hauser made his first transcontinental lawn mower ride, from Beaver, Utah, to Washington, D.C., raising $200,000 for Keep America Beautiful.

Last year, Hauser again mounted his trusty 18-horsepower Yard-Man mower, raising another $175,000, and basking in his celebrity.

Well-wishers lined up on sidewalks throughout America, holding out cups of water and flowers as he cruised at a top speed of 25 mph. Among them: music legend James Brown, newly pardoned on drug and assault charges. "Keep doing what you're doing, I dig it."