HAHAHAHAHA!!

You just DESCRIBED my neighborhood! I live in one!

I have to say, though, that Chipcom's bullet comments (no pun) are pretty accurate. I do, however, violate a couple rules he put out.

I ride a pricey bike, a $2K Dakar XLT, and it's pretty beastly in appearance. (As in 'capable' not 'ugly')

My advantage? The thugs are convinced I'm an undercover/plainclothes cop, or affiliated somehow, and could get them busted. Their logic? No 'cracker' would ride a bike like mine through 'their' hood unless he was a cop.

There WAS one, a few years ago, who was just too stupid to even process THAT; he sat on his screened-in porch across a busy 4-lane from me, hollered, "HEY, WHITE BOY!" and dry-fired his revolver in my direction, 6 times.