By: C. Kent, aka (Superman)
Listening to the weather man is just a bit like listening to a fortune teller in that sometimes they get it right but many times they don’t. Yesterday they got it right and when the sun came up the street was wet and we had experienced our first rain of the season. Today was supposed to be the bigger storm and when the sun came up we had plenty of clouds but the streets were dry. Somehow it didn’t look like or feel like it was going to rain even if the sky was almost a solid grey. In fact it was warmer because of the cloud cover. Still it seemed like a good idea to put multiple layers of cloths on.
Upon arriving at the meeting place I could only see Tool Man waiting by the windows of Burger King. It was still a bit early but we began to wonder if we would be the only riders for the day. I knew Huntress was supposed to show up and true to fashion she would be just in time. T-3 had promised to try and make the ride and true to her word she pulled in a bit after Hit Man. Right about 9am Raptor cruised in and we knew it must be time to go. I wanted to get in 35 to 40 miles if we could in case it decided to rain so we decided to head west and do the traditional La Ladera Loop stopping at Chris’s and then making a quick run home. With that in mind we started off towards Acacia with just the six of us.
Raptor had an appointment so when we reached Domenigoni he started to pull away from the group a bit and stayed ahead of us even as we reached a 20 MPH cruising speed. Tool Man was on his fixed gear, a bicycle designed to make you work for every foot of ground you cover without even the thrill of coasting downhill. Huntress had just taken the lead to pull us down the parkway when we noticed T-3 was falling back a bit. We made the assumption she was still a bit tired from the hike she had taken the Saturday before so we stopped to allow Tool Man to flip his rear sprocket to give him a better cruising speed. T-3 passed us and we followed her all the way to Warren road.
We regrouped at Winchester road and Raptor turned off to leave for his appointment. It was now just the five of us as we headed for the little hill on Domenigoni. Tool Man left us at Leon and we were down to four. Huntress was on her new Specialized and wanted to practice attacking a hill so we worked on getting her into the right gear and holding it till she couldn’t hold the spin before dropping into the next gear and holding the spin on that. It was her best hill to date and I believe soon we will be chasing her more than she will be chasing us.
It was discovered that Huntress had an appointment at noon so after we turned on La Ladera we had to pick it up a bit and by the time we got back to Winchester it was down to T-3 and me so we stopped for coffee at Chris’s where we met Red Rabbit and shared some time, conversation and Coffee with him. The ride back passed the airport was spent in conversation and drafting practice as T-3 and I talked and for one of those rare times enjoyed a tailwind almost all the way home. The day turned out to be dry, not too hot and not too cold but just right for 38 miles with friends.
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