Slip and slide street version.

Work at this camp (as I said) is not too difficult. More the logistic of the
quantity of equipment more so than actualy working on the bikes. Sometimes we will test some different equipment. This year we are trying a different version of a wheel we used this year. Just a shorter (slightly shorter) version of the deep wheel we used this year. It is called the Aeolis for those tech geeks who have to know. The guys don’t do big miles at this camp (or this time of the year) so that gives them more free time. And that immedeatly means shopping time. Being the “local” I am called upon to shuttle them to the malls for jeans and electronics among other things.
Tonight we have a sponsor dinner hosted by AMD. Their main offices are here in Austin and so they took us to a fantactic Steak place “almost” within walking distance. Normally it would be a easy walk. But it is still very cold and worse yet, it is raining. And then it would turned into freezing rain later into the night. So, we drove the 7 blocks to dinner. After dinner it was open bar for the team at a local club called “6”. This place is part owned by a guy you may know as College and some guy named Lance (and a couple others I think). Open bar was fun but it was a light night at the bar
since it was a wednesday. So about midnight we decided to drive back to the hotel.
Problem 1 was that I valet parked the car from the Restaurant. I looked across the street to see the valet parkers GONE!. So, I went into the restaurant to ask. Lucky for me they said they get the leftover keys from the valet for guys like me who go to bars after dinner. Whew, I was sweating a bit (even in the but ass cold here in Austin).
Problem 2 was the freezing rain on the car. I had no less than 1/4 of solid ice on all my windows. To drive it from valet to the front of the bar was crazy. So much ice I not only could not see but it froze the windows closed.
So, I opened the car door and poked my head outside and drove the 500 or 600 hundered feet to the front of the bar. I let the engine run so it could defrost. I can’t drive riders and sponsors back to the hotel with the door open leaning out to see where I’m going. It took a solid 25 minutes to defrost the windows and get the freezing rain/sheets of ice off the windows.
Problem 3 was freezing rain on the road. I knew it was schetchy at best so I thought I would drive slow. I did go slow. And I came to a intersection to a red light and tried to stop. KEY word is “try” to stop. I was barely going 25 in a 35 zone and slid towards the intersection. Lucky it was midnight on a wednesday AND I had to turn right. So instead of trying to stop (which I was not doing so well anyways), I decided to just continue to turn right with little decrease in actual speed. I think I could have ALMOST walked back to the hotel in the time it took me to drive there.