5/3/2010
By: C. Kent, aka (Superman)

Hemet, Ca.

What can I say but that the first day we moved the start time of the bike ride to 8am was about as nice as anyone could have asked for. I may have been up an hour earlier but the sky was a beautiful light blue and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. And no wind either. I had my coffee and breakfast and got dressed to ride.

I wasn’t even close to being the first to Burger King and just about everyone looked like they were ready to go as soon as I got there. GT-40, Duramax and Parky were all watching as I pulled up. Rocket pulled up a bit before Cossack, Red Rabbit and Jerry followed by Tax man, KillerB and Oso Rojo. Sidewinder dropped in like a pop bottle rocket and stopped with 3 minutes to spare. But before we could leave we could hear Rocket announce that he felt naked. We all turned slowly to see what he was talking about only to discover he had forgotten his phone and needed to stop by his house and get it on our way out. With that he and Cossack left and we waited till 8 to hit the road. Just as we were leaving Hit man pulled in and joined us heading for Acacia. We told Parky we would see him at Carl’s about 10am.


We talked a bit as we rode down Acacia to Kirby and got some of our visiting done as we headed towards Johnson after turning off of Kirby. Looking back I could see Oso Rojo and Hit man talking comfortably with Red Rabbit, Jerry and GT-40 cruising right in front of them. With Parky on his own ride we were back to 9 riders but everyone looked pretty fresh and eager. About halfway to Johnson we ran into Full Throttle and his son so we were back to 11 we continued through the housing tract.

After I exchanged pleasantries with Full Throttle I started to day dream a bit like I often do. It seems to me that I am very privileged to get to ride with such a group of good and strong riders. Most of the new riders look like they are already ready to move to our A group and I would be surprised if I could keep up with them on my best days. Looking back I could see a group of people that enjoyed riding bicycles and they had some nice bicycles to ride. In fact KillerB rides one of the only Orbeas I have ever seen.

I came out of my daydreaming as we reached Sanderson and Domenigoni and caught the stop light. I hadn’t noticed that Cossack and Rocket had caught up with us but shortly after we were running down Domenigoni I saw Rocket out of the corner of my eye. I managed to pull as long as I could and when I pulled out of line Rocket and three others passed me leaving a large hole between them and the rest of the group. I caught a wheel behind GT-40 and let them pull me along to State Street. After the turn I saw it was Full Throttle pulling with Rocket and GT-40 in draft and I was trailing as the rest of the group fell in behind. Soon Rocket was in front and we started to pick up the pace. The lead group started to pull away and at the same time break up. Four of us made the top turn at State and Cactus valley together and then I looked back and the group was spread out over at least 150 yards. I dropped off and rode with KillerB and Cory to regroup with everyone at the end of the road.

The ride back down towards McSweeney was rather frantic and very quick. We lost Cory who had decided to go home. We lost Tax Man somewhere and Oso Rojo turned back somewhere as well. For some reason the lead group started a hard run towards Stetson and three of us watched them go. We caught some light red and seemed to watch as they were always disappearing around a corner way ahead of us. It was good however because that whole group seemed to stay together very well.

Duramax, GT-40 and I turned left on Fairview thinking the rest of the group would already be on their way back towards Florida but it seems as if we out guessed each other. Turns out most of that group had to head home rather than stop at Carl’s so when we got to stop we only had to wait for Sidewinder and KillerB. We also met up with Raptor that had been out on a ride by himself. We had a relaxing time before heading for home. It turned out to only be 34 miles for me but it was a good 34 miles and I felt good about the ride.