Small town USA

Before I get started, let me note that I will be ranting in this post and there may be language offensive to some.
I left home around 6:30 am and made my way to meet the group that was leaving at 7:00 am. I figured I’d meet them on the road. I actually made it all the way to the start of the ride before they left. This was actually a plus because I was fully warmed up by the time they were rolling out. The route was one I’d done numerous times and it offers a little of every terrain. There were 24 riders. This was a large group for this ride. I had hoped to work in my regular training, but that did not happen. The pace was pretty good, but there were lots of accelerations and decelerations making a steady output of power very difficult. No worries though, the ride was good and I did my share of work at the front. I felt really good. I was climbing well and my turns at the front were not labored. There are several climbs on this route that are contested. The big climb, Metcalf, never gets any easier. It has about a 22% grade at its steepest. I was 3rd on the way up and finished 2nd at the top. I didn’t leave everything on the climb because I knew we still had a strong, fast, long downhill run of about 7 miles. It, as always, was a blast with lots of curves. This climb and descent are part of the National Park. As we rolled out of the Park and headed back into town, all was going as usual until we came to a red light. The group bunched up at the light, stopping, as we should, for the red light. As the light change and we started to move, we rolled through the intersection and began to get back into a pace line. Before we could get that line completed a police car in the opposing lane of traffic blasted us with the PA speaker telling us to “single up, single file”. We were already working on that. OK, we got the pace line formed, got up to about 29-30 mph and all was going fine again. A few riders did their pull and rotated off the front. I did my pull and as I was rotating off the front, a second police car came barreling up next to me with the cop screaming through the passenger window for me to single up. “What don’t you understand about single file?” he yelled. What does he not understand about that’s where the hell I’m heading. I yelled back that I was heading to the back. He yelled something else, sped up, turned on his blue lights, pulled in front of the group and came to an abrupt stop turning into a pull off. He caused the entire group to grab their brakes and risk crashing into him and each other. What an ASS HOLE! He jumped out of the car, yelling like an idiot and had us all pull off the road where he could continue to yell like a driver suffering from road rage. As I already knew and he made sure to announce, he was the “chief” of police here. I must interject here that I have known “of” the chief and heard good things about him, but this display did not resemble anything I’d heard about this man. My opinion of cops has always been VERY low and this confirmed that even more. He continued to berate us, at the top of his lungs, making stupid remarks and comments that had no merit and made less sense. He even threatened to haul one guy off to jail because he was smiling. What a total ass hole. This is just another good ol’ boy, redneck with a badge and a huge chip on his shoulder. By the way, what happened to cops having to go through a physical training test? He could stand getting off his ass and out for a bike ride or some form of exercise with the gut he is carrying around. There was no talking or reasoning with this prick. He is the typical stereotype of the small town, smart ass cop with no clue! Barney Fife is alive and well, believe me, I saw him at his “best” this morning. The driver of a car waiting to get out of the turn off was shaking her head as she could hear all his ranting. As she came by she spoke to a few of us and said “someone is sure having a bad day”. One rider said “we were…” She replied, “You will again as soon as this nonsense is over.”
I guess he finally thought he’s has his say and made some point, which we have not figured out yet. One of the riders has a column in the local newspaper. I can’t wait to see his rant next week. Again, what an ASS HOLE!!!
I’m done.