Monday's Ride

By: C. Kent, aka (Superman)


There was no doubt about it we did not slowly slide into the fall season from summer. Fall slammed into us like a tree falling on a house. The sky didn’t even have a hint of blue and in the early morning light it might have been described as confederate grey. It was also a lot cooler than we were used to so it was going to take extra layers for the ride to feel warm for most of us.

It was time for a long sleeve shirt under the jersey with leg warmers and a wind vest. Add long fingered gloves and I was about ready to go out and face the day. One last sip of hot tea and it was time to go meet the group at Burger King.

With the weather being a bit cold it seemed that the leg muscles were a bit tight and would take more warming up than normal so the pace going over to the parking lot was slower than normal. Still spinning seemed to work pretty well at getting the blood flowing and soon deacon could be seen parked up against the windows on the east side of Burger king. A few moments Rocket pulled up followed by Quick Sticks. We were still saying our hellos when Red Rabbit rolled up on his Lapierre followed by Tool Man on foot. Tool man had raced Sunday so he was walking to work where he had his other bike waiting. Shadow and Sherpa were the next to arrive and one quick look at the time told us we were about all that would be riding today. Quietly we decided on riding east after going through Cactus Valley.

The Red Rabbit wasn’t waiting for us and left a few moments before the rest of us leaving us in his dust. Just as we pulled out of the parking lot Raptor joined us and we started off to work our way over to Sanderson. Once headed South on Sanderson we could just make out a small dot than had to be Red Rabbit. We managed to run him down before we got to Domenigoni and we turned towards State Street and the Soccer field below the Marina. Once again Red Rabbit took off with a rather large lead followed by Raptor. The rest of us caught them by the time we got to State and we turned South towards Cactus Valley. Before we get to the turn Rocket turns on the after burners and makes the small hill at the left turn first followed closely by Shadow and I was a distant third.

We all had to stop for traffic at Sage and for a change I managed to get a pretty good jump on the first climb into Cactus Valley. At the top of that first hill Shadow caught me and a few bike lengths later he and Rocket passed me. Still it was one of my better runs at that little hill.

On the way back Sherpa gave in to the cold and decided to go home and maybe come out later. By the time we got most of the way back to Domenigoni Rocket tossed in the towel because he wasn’t dressed warm enough and we lost Quick Sticks on Santa Fe for the same reason. Four of us continued on to the east and ended up at Carl’s to have coffee with Deacon. For a change coffee was the drink of the day even if the ride home seemed a bit colder after the warm restaurant.