6/30/2010
By: C. Kent, aka (Superman)


I was feeling a bit groggy for some reason when I got up but I knew I wanted to get ready for a ride. By the time I had a cup of coffee and breakfast I was feeling a lot better. One look outside told me it was going to be another good day for a ride. A few minutes later Sidewinder stopped by so we could ride to Burger King together. I finished my coffee and we were on our way.

When we pulled into the parking lot Parky and wart were already there. It is always good to see both of them considering Wart is recovering from an altercation with a car and Parky has been AWOL for other reasons. As we chatted Surgeon pulled up followed by Rocket, Brian, (Double Shot) and Shadow walked up to visit while the rest of our riders arrived. Centaur and the Phoenix pulled up and as we chatted some more Gambler pulled up on a brand new Giant TCR that we all drooled over. It was a beautiful White and Red with white and red American Classic White and Red Aero wheels. By the time Cossack, Duramax, T-3, Huntress, Oso Rojo and Hit Man pulled up everyone had commented on Gambler’s new ride. We were 13 Strong and ready to hit the road so off we went down Gilmore towards Acacia.


Like most days we made it to Acacia and over to Kirby pretty quickly and then made the rapid run to Cypress Street and over to Johnston before catching the light at Sanderson. Well to be honest half of us got caught at the light on Johnston and Sanderson and the other half made it to Stetson and caught that light. Rocket had to leave us at Stetson so the rest of us stayed in a pretty close pace line almost all the way to Domenigoni. We did lose some at the light on Mustang but we regrouped after we turned onto Domenigoni. It was about here that the ride was kicked up a notch. Once Double Shot got the lead we started a run down Domenigoni that averaged 19.2 MPH all the way to the Saddle

We divided into two groups and for the first time in a long time I found myself in line with the lead group as we cruised down the road taking turns pulling. We lost Oso Rojo at Warren due to his work schedule but we still had half of the group running up front and slowly pulling away. We stacked up a bit at Warren but we started to stretch out again pretty quickly. One by one the lead riders pulled off till I found myself pulling after we passed Leon. I was too far back from the hill to make a run for it and I knew I was in no position to participate in the traditional sprint so I simply continued my pull till the sprint took place. After about half of the lead pack passed me I managed to grab a wheel and hold my place in the middle of the pack. Most of the group continued on as I waited for the other group before heading down the back side of the saddle and headed for Menifee.

We made reasonable work of Menifee road and regrouped at Scott Road before running all the way to Murrieta Road. Once again we regrouped and I discussed the rest of the route to McCall and over to Chris’s.


Murrieta road is a high speed run almost all the way to Newport and we were all in one long line within sight of each other. As we got close to the turn on McCall I noticed we had picked up a Mini Van that was following us and blocking the lane so no cars would come up behind us. Looking in the window of the Mini Van you could see a man with a MTB helmet and a small American Flag waving out of the driver’s side window. The man turned out to be a transplant from Argentina named Eduardo? Anyway he felt it wasn’t safe for us to be on the road without an escort so he followed us all the way back to Hemet. All of us however made it back safely to the airport where our blocking vehicle left us.

By the time I got home I had just over 40 miles on the clock and our average speed was a lot quicker than I had thought it would be. One of the great things about our group is the focus is on having a good time while we ride and if today is any indication we succeed far more often than we fail.