| Original Message |
Sideshow
Posted May 3, 2004 5:02 PM
You were too busy looking at your camera. Yeah, I wrote my little bit at 9:00, but I got a call from Tweek at 9:24. He was in Pine Bluff and wondering if I had already been through. I was asking him if he was serious. He was. I told him I would be on my way. I grabbed a pair and got on my bike. From Monroe St. to Pine Bluff the snow was as you described -- to big to be called flakes. And blizzard-like -- with about a half-inch of accumulation on grassy areas. I somehow convinced myself that I could do this -- especially since I have a bike that is considerably newer and more mechanically sound than Tweek's. A number of cars in Madison pointed at me at stoplights and had that WTF look in their eyes. Luckily, County S is, unlike it's name, a straight path to Pine Bluff.
I've never experienced such a peculiar feeling -- that at any second I could slip and die. On S I was cruising along in 5th gear at the engine's lowest changing-torque band. I didn't look at the speedo, but later found out it is the equivalent of 65 mph. This was stupid and insane -- but I was more worried about getting to Pine Bluff, and not having wind over cold-wet gloves freeze my fingers numb. So the faster the better. But this is on snow. The faster the dumber. And the fact that I had about a grand total of about 12 square inches beneath my flipped up visor and above my pulled-to-the-tip-of-my-nose-because-they're-fogging sunglasses, it's even more retarded. But still a catch-22. Seeing that Tweek made it there with some cloth gloves paired to rubber dishwashing gloves made me feel like a total wus. I waved to a bicyclist on S that was obviously freezing, but smiling.
After parking my bike in the parking lot, I looked around at about 25 other hardcore enthusiasts. Even the Motorcycle Performance tricked-out crazy sportbikes were there and had taken the bullet mother nature had shot. I think a lot of communal respect was given inside the bar and it lifted the aura or the whole event. It cleared up not long after I was there, but it sure made my day more interesting.
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