2/12/2010
By: C. Kent, aka (Superman)

Hemet, Ca

Sometimes we have plans for a ride and sometimes we even follow those plans. Today I had a plan for the ride. My plan was for us to take an easy ride west, grab some coffee at Chris’s. The group was a bit smaller than usual when we all got started. Parky had Rick and Connie with him and my group included Rocket, Hit man, Beowulf and Powersurge.

We started off down Kirby and made it to Cottonwood according to plan. It looked like Rocket would pull us along at a recovery ride pace that I thought would be perfect before the big ride we had planned for Saturday in Palm Springs.


As we rode through the housing track just west of Warren road it started to warm up and that always feels better. Beowulf and Powersurge were just cruising along as we got ready to head out onto Warren Road and I still had enough energy to get in front and take a few pictures. These kinds of rides are always interesting for me because all of the riders I was with seem stronger than I am and that makes me try harder. The bad part of riding with riders stronger than you is that a relaxing ride for them is a workout for me.

The real test of how recovery this ride was going to be would come as we started down Ramona Expressway towards Lakeview and Nuevo. Just as I expected we started to pick up the pace a bit and fortunately for me we accelerated at a slow pace so I was able to hang on and even pull for a while. I did make a mistake as I dropped off of the pull and fell back into line because I fell into line in front of Powersurge rather than fall all the way to the pack. Once I realized my error I pulled back out of line and let Powersurge back in front of me but by then I lost the draft and fell behind just before Lakeview.

I tried to redeem myself on the pull to Nuevo road and made a pretty good effort almost all the way up the road. Once we turned on Nuevo is is pretty much downhill towards Menifee. We made the turn onto Menifee Rocker, Beuwulf and Hit man started a run right after the stop sign. For some reason Powersurge fell off of the back. I discovered he had been riding for at least an hour before he stopped by to ride with us so I will chalk it up to him being a bit tired. I got in front of him and pulled him back up to Mapes as we made the turn east. Before we made the right turn towards the High School Powersurge left us for home and now I was left with three of our stronger riders. I knew there was only one big challenge left and that would be the sprint on Grand/9th Street. True to form Rocket took off on the sprint and I tried to hold on. All in all I had to be happy with my ride. We got in about 37 miles and at a bit faster pace than I had planned but all in all it was a good ride. I was worried that I would be a bit sore for Saturday but I still had a smile on my face at Chris’s.