Sunday, January 10, 2010

Cops, Ice, And Danger: The Sunday Ride


What the hell was I thinking? Barely two days ago, Mongo's part of Atlanta was covered with snow and ice...with the less travelled roads of the suburbs and neighborhoods impassable at worst, and extremely dangerous at best. Add to all of this that the temperature hasn't been above freezing for days, and you've got a recipe for staying inside.

Of course, Mongo was feeling cocky from his Thursday, pre-snow, W.W.S.D. ride, so I decided to throw caution to the wind and attempt the MNR loop under icy, sub thirty degree, weather conditions. Boy was that stupid!

The temperature was really never the problem. Mongo has gotten his cold weather layering down to a science. Excluding my helmet and shoes, from head to toe today I was wearing "thirteen" separate articles of apparel. I ain't gonna lie, it's a production to get dressed and undressed...but at least I'm warm.

The problem today was the ice. Much of the MNR loop was still treacherous. Mongo had to use all of his bike handling skills on the climbs and descents just not to crash. You can see some of these skills in action here when I was filmed by a news helicopter a while back.

About half way through the ride I rounded a corner only to be greeted by flashing Police lights. My first instinct was to take my shirt off and run...just like on "Cops". But after realizing I'd done nothing wrong, and only having "misdemeanor" quantities of weed on me, I rolled up to the cop car and asked what was going on.

It turned out that there was a big-ass accident just up ahead and my ride would be coming to an end because the road was too icy to even attempt to continue forward. So...I called "Shady" on the celly to get some alternate directions, turned around, and rode home.

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