12/19/09
By: C. Kent, aka (Superman)

Hemet, Ca


Well it was that time again, the monthly coffee shop ride. I think these rides may just be my favorite kinds of ride. It is riding for the pure joy of riding and with other people that are riding for the same reason. We don’t ride very far and we don’t ride very fast but the time still seems to fly by. Today was a perfect example of what a coffee shop ride should be.


We all started to arrive in front of the bike shop about seven forty-five in the morning. It seemed to start out a bit cooler than I like but it wasn’t anything worth complaining about. I recognized some of our regular riders and was happy to see some new faces. I have yet to go on one of these rides where I didn’t meet some interesting people and today was no different. I even discovered that one of the new riders lives in the same neighborhood as I did.

We always try to plan these ride to have the least amount of car traffic and today we seemed to be very successful at doing just that. We meandered through quiet neighborhoods with Christmas decorations placed strategically on manicured lawns. Every now and then we would pass people walking either with a friend or with their pets.

I was struck with the clearness of the morning and the quietness as we rode through the neighborhood streets. It was quite easy to carry on a conversation and get a chance to know the people you were riding with and we easily pedaled along with little or no effort

Once we were through Seven Hills we started east towards an older section of town yet we were still traveling on quiet streets. One of the riders had brought along his two sons and they were easily dispersed between the other riders and seemed to be enjoying themselves as well as anyone.

Once we made the turn north and towards downtown we did run into a few more vehicles but still not enough to disturb our ride and we proceeded through the intersections with incident.

We finally rode passed the weekend farmers market on Latham and made the turn on State Street heading for the old Hemet Train Station. Once there we had a chance to sit and develop new friendships. One of our riders discovered a young man waiting at the station who had broken the chain on his bicycle so a few of us pooled our tools and attempted a repair. Turned out the young man was a neighbor of one of our group and he had just recently earned his Eagle Scout status. All in all I would have to say, I believe we had a very good ride on a very good day with very good people. I hope to ride with them again.