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Atlanta Scooter Club: An ice-cold ride that warmed my heart

When I lived in San Francisco, I used to walk down to the sandy inlet below the Golden Gate Bridge to watch the bald, big-bellied Polar Bear swimmers in action. Wearing only tight Speedos/suits and brightly colored swim caps, these men (and women) would happily dive into the freezing cold, shark-infested waters of the East Bay and freestroke to Alcatraz island and back. Every single time I saw this scene unfold, I would think to myself: I’d rather eat a bucket of rusty nails. So, when my friend Vadim asked if I wanted to join him in the first annual “Frozen Chosen” Polar Bear scavenger ride, sponsored by the Atlanta Scooter Society, I must have suffered a minor stroke when I said yes.

 

Did I mention my friend is born-and-raised Russian? For him, driving 40 mph in the wide, open winter air is nothing a shot of Vodka and muskrat shapka can’t tame. I, on the other hand, get hypothermia just walking down the dairy aisle at the grocery store. I opened the link to the event’s event website, though, and the first thing it mentioned was an hour-long “meet-and-greet” involving steamy beverages and baked goods. Foolishly, I imagined the whole experience turning into a bunch of bundled up strangers sitting around a crackling fire, indulging in hot cocoa and homemade ginger snaps while our scooters sat outside in the bone-chillingly cold parking lot getting to know one another. How naïve I was.

 

On the morning of the ride, (Saturday, December 13), a blistering cold front brought record low temperatures and flurries into Northern Georgia. The famous Jack London story where the man gives a painstaking play-by-play of freezing to death under a blanket of snow flashes across my mind. I swat the image away and pad on more layers of clothes than Ralph’s younger brother in the "Christmas Story." As stiff as a starched sock, I plod down my apartment stairs, remove the tarp from my hibernating 50 cc Buddy scooter, rev the engine, and follow Vadim to the Polar Bear's den.

 

Any hope that the organizers were a bunch of wooses easily intimidated by the thought of extreme motor sports was instantly dashed. The host Matt -- Just returned from a two-year term in Iraq as a maintenance tech for humvees and military tanks AND opened a scooter mechanic shop in Atlanta, and his wife JJ -- A vaccine research scientist for the Center of Disease Control -- spend their free time off-roading on their custom-made Ruckus’s. Matt’s Zoomer is camouflage green, with a painted shark jaw on the handlebar frame exposing rows of sharp, pointy teeth AND below the seat, two magazines of fake plastic bullets. The only other nutjob besides Vadim and myself who signed up for the Polar Bear ride was a strapping, soft-spoken man whose biceps had more definition than Noah Webster. He rode up on a 260 cc scooter/Batpod with a black rose-wreath sticker reading “No Regrets,” and wore a thermal facemask screen printed in the likeness of a grinning skeleton. Clearly, the games would go on.

 

We are divided into two teams and handed a detailed street map of the historic Morningside neighborhood of Atlanta (about five square miles). We have four hours to find the answers to 15 trivia questions all relating in some way to the rich heritage of this living time capsule. Ahead of our competition, Vadim and I take off at top speed down Cheshire Bridge Road in search of our first clue. Within minutes, the nine layers of clothes I’m wearing seem as thin as air and I feel like the wind-lashed gremlin gripped to the airplane wing in the Twilight Zone movie. I repeat the words of the clue over and over in my head to rise above the elements -- “This secret society was the original occupant of the 2nd floor of the Morningside Shopping Center that now includes Smith’s Olde Bar.” Vadim pulls onto the curb in front of Cow Tippers and tends to the bikes while I jump off and run over to the site. Faded into the stone on the topmost façade I see a faint triangular shape: A square, compass, and G in the center. When I take it over to Vadim, he recognizes the symbol as the Masonic icon. Shazam!

 

Soon, the adrenalin of the competition kicks in and warms me to the bone. The excitement of the challenge and thrill of discovering these obscure relics of a time before cars and scooters, when horse carriages lined the streets and women in hoop-skirt dresses and ribboned sunbrellas sipped tea on their wrap-around front porches. Before I knew it, I was peeling OFF layers of clothes and begging for a tall glass of ice water to quench my parched throat.

 

Clue after clue brought us deeper into the ancient and modern heritage of this quaint Atlanta neighborhood. Some were straightforward “Find Me” questions; such as “the number of bridges between East and West Sussex Road.” Others, more word play oriented than where-play: “A ‘Depression’ Era park.” Answer: “Sunken Garden with sunken being a “depression” in the earth. Or, “An ‘Educated’ Synagogue. That would be Congregation Shearith Israel on “UNIVERSITY” drive. Get it?

 

After three hours of turning over every historical, architectural, topographical, and syntactical stone in Morningside, I felt a new appreciation, both parts pride and awe for this town I call home. For years, I had bicycled or driven past these hidden hallmarks without knowing their history or hearing their amazing stories. Tree-lined streets paved with gorgeous antebellum-mansions; Parks named after Presidents; a Jewish Temple opened in the same building where the KKK held their covert meetings; a popular dive bar where the secret handshaking Freemasons distilled their own spirits; and a hidden row of immaculately kept 1920s-built Spanish villas tucked between the modern stucco homes on Sherwood Road.

 

Now that I know just a small fraction of the history buried in this five-square-mile block of metro-Atlanta, I see every storefront, every sidewalk in split screen; the haunting back-story coexisting with the one of today: Case in point: You can walk into an upscale hair salon on North Highland Avenue and get highlights a stone’s throw from where a major Civil war battle took place. You can even have a picnic on the same exact hill where Sherman watched the entire city of Atlanta burn to the ground in 1864.

 

By the end of the Polar Bear scavenger ride, I couldn’t feel my fingers or toes, but I didn’t care. Despite the arctic wind chill, I was eternally grateful to have experienced this unbelievable tour of Morningside. So, thanks to hardcore scooter enthusiasts Matt and his wife JJ for hosting this unusual, albeit masochistic event; I will be there for whatever the Atlanta Scooter Society thinks of next.