1/25/10
By: C. Kent, aka (Superman)

Hemet, Ca

It has been more than a week since my last group ride. The weather simply has not co-operated and I was beginning to get cabin fever. It turned out I didn’t have cabin fever I had a cold. I tried to get out Saturday but by the time I got home I knew I should have stayed in bed. My hope was that I would be better by Monday. When it was time to get up this morning I was feeling about 60 percent so I decided to give it a try and got into my Bibs and Jersey and headed for the meeting place.


It was my intention to take it rather easy and plan out a pretty simple route just to get in the miles. I suggested the traditional La Ladera loop figuring that even if I got dropped badly I could find a way to get to Chris’s to meet everyone for coffee. Just before we got ready to leave a new rider pulled up and unloaded a nice looking Cannondale and walked over for introductions. His name was Sigfried and we quickly filled him in on our route and get ready to leave.

Everyone was out of the parking lot before I could get my helmet on so I had to hurry a bit to catch them at the light and get in front to get a picture. The whole group reminded of a pack of dogs that were ready for a fox hunt. I felt less like a Fox Hound and more like a Basset Hound thought that this might end up being a long day. My only hope was that Rocket would take pity on me and hold the pace down on Domenigoni and I held to that hope as we passed Stetson on Sanderson where Quicksticks joined the group. A few blocks later Shadow pulled into line and we got ready to make the turn west on Domenigoni. I held on reasonably well till we got to Winchester Road when Highlander, Duramax, Beowulf and Sigfried, Attack Cat started pulling away.


I simply didn’t have the steam to catch them and it looked like Beowulf was heading for the beach as he crested the hill and the Domenigoni Saddle before I even made the bottom of the hill. I was lucky however because they decided to regroup at the top of the hill and that gave me a chance to catch up and to catch my breath. Red Rabbit was the last to arrive and once he got there we all took off heading for the park at La Ladera. We made a quick relief stop and headed on towards Macall. The pack stayed pretty close together for most of the ride over to Macall and I was just hoping to hang on till we got over the Hill on Macall.

Once we got to the top of Macall we only had a brief chance to catch our breath before Red Rabbit took off down the back side heading for the housing tract and Simpson. Once on Simpson we got back into a pace line and soon I found myself in the back of the pack being pulled along by the draft. Highlander notified me as he passed that he intended to stay on Simpson rather than turn on Leon and over to Grand. Once he said that the pace increased as Rocket pulled up front. I pulled forward to let Shadow know he had dropped a candy bar and Attack Cat allowed me space back in line just in front of him.

I held on the best I could till we were well passed Leon before I saw that Rocket had separated by about 20 feet from the front of the pace line. We were passing a stand of trees that blocked any wind so because I had been drafting all morning I decided to pull forward and fill the gap. Once I started passed the line and fell behind Rocket we were rolling along at a pretty good pace. I tried to pull for a while but I only lasted about 100 yards before Rocket pulled back in front and towed me to Winchester road. As we turned onto Winchester heading over to Chris’s we caught up with Deacon and Rick so for a change we got to Chris’s before Deacon. We all stopped for coffee or soda and after talking for a while split up and headed for home, some going by the airport and some back down Domenigni. It was a beautiful day with good company and I got in 39 miles with an average speed of 17MPH. Even if I wasn’t feeling great I felt better than I had in days.