Pulled over on my Bicycle...for Speeding

This Friday after CrossFit, I decided I was going to make a batch of Mead. I feel the need to follow in the footsteps of my Dad, brother and the rest of the family. Many years of Moonshining, bootlegging, brewing, and wine making needed to be carried on. I'll just stick to Wine and Beer making.

Mead for those who don't know is simply: Honey Wine. The oldest form of alcoholic beverage in the world. They talk about it in the Bible. (Don't ask me where)

It's simple to make:

1 Gallon of Spring water
1.5 lbs of Raspberries
4.5 lbs of Honey
1 juiced lime
1 juiced lemon
3 tablespoons of Strong English Tea (I used Longaberger Homestead Tea)
1 packet of Dry Ale Yeast

Raspberry Mead Ingredients:

I also made a 5 gallon All Grain Batch of beer: Honey Kolsch
10 lbs of Grain
1 lb of Honey
6 Gallons of water
2 Ounces of Hops: Hallertau, and Tettanag
1-2 Pints of cultured Kolsch Yeast

Honey Kolsch Ingredients:

This batch of beer was my first solo All Grain batch. I've been planning for this brew for a while now by learning all that I could about the various techniques involved. I decided to go Spartan on the equipment and keep the costs and hassle down a bit. I was still nervous as can be. There is somewhat a little bit of time, effort and money involved in this. It's a gamble I was willing to take.

Here is the Mashing of the grains in my Mash Tun:

There are a lot of guys out there with elaborate Brew Systems that turn out great brew. Then there are other guys out there with a cheap and simple set up that can produce the same results. For now, I want to be one of the later guys.

Here is the cooling of the Wort:

The batch turned out great. I achieved the original gravity I was shooting for, and it's now fermenting like crazy in the fermenter.

Okay.....This is where it gets interesting. Skip to here and read this:

I went on a bike ride today and was unsure of the distance. I got about 3 hours of sleep and decided to just stay up. Otherwise, I would have fell back to sleep and ended up waking up really late in the day. The ride itself was uneventful with the exception of a few near misses with running off the road. Those skinny tires are a bear to get used to.

Toward the end of the ride, about mile 20, there is a long sloping hill that leads into my town.
I love this section as you can really get up to speed. Now, this highway I ride on has a bike lane on both side of the road. There is plenty of room for two bikes side by side including traffic lanes.

I started cranking down the hill and dropped down on my aerobars and continued to pedal hard.

Out of nowhere, I hear this sharp ear piercing chirp from a police siren. I nearly wrecked my bike. Those damn skinning tires. I kept pedaling, and heard the siren again. Certainly this jackass was kidding. I slowed down and he pulled right behind me. Kidding right? No! I slowed down thinking he was pulling into one of the houses. Still pedaling, I thought okay, I'll let this moron around me. He slowed as I slowed and then I finally stopped. He got out and asked me if I knew how fast I was going. I said, "No, How fast"? At this point I still thought it was a some joke my neighbor was playing on me. He is a Highway Patrolman and a big jokester.

For fun, we'll call him: Deputy Richard Noggin.

Deputy Richard Noggin: You were going 32 MPH in a 25. Cool! I thought.

Me: "Really"?

Deputy Richard Noggin: "Now, I really pulled you over because of how unsafe you were being".

Me: "Okay".

Deputy Richard Noggin: "There are side roads here that cars could pull out in front of you"

Me: "Then wouldn't that be their fault"?

He looked at me with this stupid look on his face and proceeded to tell me to slow down and be a little more careful.

Me: "Okay" I am still waiting for the punchline because this cannot be for real. He told me it wasn't worth giving me a warning or a ticket. Damn! If this was real, I wanted the ticket!

I was just too dumbfounded to think about getting a picture of this incident. I pedaled off still waiting for the punchline that never came. Tomorrow, I am going to call the county and see if it is even something they could have pulled me over for. Really? Speeding on a bicycle?

I only thought Rainmaker or Lance Armstrong could do that.

Totals: 23 miles: bike