{"id":8452,"date":"2015-02-17T08:32:43","date_gmt":"2015-02-17T14:32:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/?p=8452"},"modified":"2015-02-17T09:52:07","modified_gmt":"2015-02-17T15:52:07","slug":"adventuring-in-the-covington-pike-bottoms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/?p=8452","title":{"rendered":"Adventuring in the Covington Pike Bottoms"},"content":{"rendered":"

The weather in Memphis has been totally normal this week… that is to say, we rode in short sleeves on Saturday, and on Monday, we awoke to piles of sleet on the ground.<\/p>\n

Sticking with our theme of being bored with the same trails (and knowing that since the weather was great on Saturday that those same trails would be packed), Matt and I struck out to explore what local cyclists call the “Epic” trails. More often, they’re referred to as the Covington Pike Bottoms, and they’re equally as popular for ATV pilots as our usual Shelby Farms trails are for runners, hikers, and cyclists. It’s basically a bunch of tracks through the woods along the south side of the Wolf River (and, as you venture westward, crossing to the north and continuing on towards the Mississippi). They stay incredibly muddy year round because of the ATV traffic, though when it hasn’t rained for a couple of weeks, you can pick your way around the bogs and have a pretty nice adventure.<\/p>\n

As of Saturday, it was very slow going- the ratio of good riding to “picking around wheel-deep mudholes” was about equal. A summer drought is normally your best chance for a higher ratio of riding-to-bogging. We still had a good out and back adventure, though… occasionally stopping to watch ATV drivers and whatnot.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_6685\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"IMG_6688\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"IMG_6687\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On the way back, we were stopped at a neighborhood trail entrance by the Memphis Police. More accurately, two cops were arresting ATV drivers as they emerged from the woods and into a neighborhood where the residents were fed up with loud, somewhat drunken jackasses going 50mph up the street and slinging mud all over the place. One\u00a0cop told us to get on someplace else because they were going to go in and get more people out. We found a suitable detour, though, and stopped to make friends with people we met along the trail\u00a0back to where we’d started.<\/p>\n

As is customary for all weekend blog posts, we met with friends to watch the UFC Fight Night at El Toro Loco. Matt made a matching shirt buddy while Torian<\/a> and I made fun of individuals who exemplified our respective racial stereotypes.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_6692\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sunday the weather transitioned from nice to arctic-ish. People battened down the hatches in preparation for a winter storm that would eventually dump several inches of sleet across Tennessee. We took an evening adventure to WalMart and speculated a purchase of a fatbike, but decided against it. It was an entertaining trip, nonetheless.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_6702\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Screw the milk, bread, and batteries…<\/p>\n

\"IMG_6705\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The storm system didn’t disappoint, if it was buckets of sleet you were dreaming about.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_6707\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was happy to have a chance to test out my all wheel drive vehicle<\/p>\n

\"IMG_6714<\/a><\/p>\n

\"IMG_6715<\/a><\/p>\n

\"IMG_6708\"<\/a><\/p>\n

High quality entertainment right there.<\/p>\n

I was tempted a couple of times to go ride, but ended up deciding against it because A) in order to not get hit by a stupid driver, you’d need to drive to a trail to ride, and B) it’s solid ice… not snow. It’d be like riding\u00a0on a rutted hockey rink. I’ll stick to trainer rides and donut-ing my car in parking lots.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The weather in Memphis has been totally normal this week… that is to say, we rode in short sleeves on Saturday, and on Monday, we awoke to piles of sleet on the ground. Sticking with our theme of being bored with the same trails (and knowing that since the weather was great on Saturday that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[27,16,8,5],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8Uq-2ck","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8452"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8452"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8475,"href":"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8452\/revisions\/8475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}