Half Century

1/29/10
By: C. Kent, aka (Superman)

Hemet, Ca

Sometimes things simply don’t seem to be going according to plan and this last two weeks seem to be one of those times. Because of the weather I have had plenty of time to clean my road bike and while doing just that I discovered a small hairline crack in the frame. Now I have to send it to the distributer to see if they can fix or replace it. Then the good part might be that I just put my Jamis back together so at least I could do our group rides on that. Today was the first test of my assembly skills as I had to use the Jamis for one of our longer Palm Springs warm up rides. I set up a ride just over 55 miles and e-mailed the directions so all the regular riders. All this was on my mind as I left the house and headed for the meeting place today.

When we all assembled at the Burger King I could see it was going to be a small group. I knew Parky, Deacon and Rick wouldn’t be going with us because of the distance and some of our regulars hadn’t showed up by about 8:50. By 9am it was Beowulf, Highlander, Attack cat, Duramax, Shadow and me. I explained the route and we were off on Lathum and turned on Lyon to make the run up to Ramona Expressway. We setteled into a steady pace heading towards Lake Parris. I did manage to get to the side of the road and catch a picture of Beowulf pulling us passed the dairies between Warren and Lakerview.


The drawback to taking a picture from that distance is you fall off the back of the draft and you have to work extra hard to catch back up. This was a trail run for my Jamis after I put it back together. It also showed me how much harder it is to get a basically touring bike up to speed. Thank goodness Beowulf saw my trying to catch up and he fell back to pull me up to Duramax and then the rest of the group.

Our next obstacle was going to be the two little hills in front of Lake Parris. Highlander was leading the way and I was able keep up pretty for the first ½ of the hill or so. As I pulled up beside Highlander Beowulf and Attack Cat took off followed by Shadow. I shifted into a lower gear to try and hold a spin and Highlander dropped me like I was rolling backwards. About then Duramax passed me and I ended up trailing everyone almost all the way to Evans. We did manage to stay together as a group as we turned onto Parris Boulevard and I was even able to stay up front for a little while. We were all still in a pretty good mood as we neared the 25 mile mark towards the end of Parris Boulevard and made the turn onto Goetz. I know Highlander was having a good time because he like being able to catch and pass me at will. His smile kept giving him away.

We decided that once we got on Newport we would stay in it and stop at Jack in the box for coffee. Looking at my computer I could see we were making pretty good time for the distance we were going and everyone had been taking a turn at the front so some of us could rest while in the pack. The great thing about one of these longer rides is we get a chance to talk more and at time laugh. I decided to try and get a good picture of Shadow and Duramax stuck one of his water bottles out thinking he was blocking the shot. All it really did is show why it is so hard to draft Shadow. It is clear to see Shadow isn’t much bigger than a water bottle.

We picked up the pace a bit and made it to Jack in the Box about 11:20. It was good to refuel and refresh ourselves before heading back towards Winchester. We were heading back down Newport by 11:45 and hit the Domenagoni Saddle right about 11:50. I had just enough energy left to attack the hill and managed not to get dropped by a grinning Highlander. Once over the saddle Beowulf and Attack cat took off towards Winchester road. About halfway back to Sanderson Attack cat decided he wanted to head out to Cactus Valley and Beowulf decided he would go with him. They had been strong all day and looked like that had energy left.

At the corner of State and Domenigoni I managed to catch up as two of our riders made the turn and Duramax stopped because we saw Sherpa heading for home. We rode up to McSweeney together and Duramax and I headed for home.

By the time I got back home I had 55.1 miles on the clock at 16.5 MPH. All things considering the test ride for the Jamis worked out pretty well. It will work pretty good as a century bike and weekend café rider.