8/04/2010
By: C. Kent, aka (Superman)


There are advantages to living in Southern California and the weather is one of them. When I left the house this morning in was in the high 60s and clear as a bell. I had mapped a easy 30+ mile ride out Domenigoni and back to Kelly’s and thought I would get a recovery ride in today. That was the plan but that isn’t exactly how things turned out.


I got to Burger King first for a change and my legs were only slightly sore from Bautista on Tuesday afternoon. Duramax arrived next and then Ocelot pulled up. Rocket was the next to arrive but only a few minutes before Cossack. Last to arrive was Jim one of our new riders. By 8am it seemed as if the six of us were all that were going to show up. So we saddled up and headed down Gilmore to Acacia and right about there I should have known it was going to be anything but a recovery ride. We made it over to Kirby and turned on Cypress where I fell in line with the group as we moved rapidly towards Johnston.

Rocket told me he was planning to just noodle along and I was my hope that if that was the case we would have a nice easy ride. Cossack expressed a bit of doubt about Rocket holding back but I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and it seemed he was kicking back as we headed down Johnston and made the turn onto Sanderson. Duramax took the lead and pulled us all the way to Domenigoni and made then turn towards Warren Road. We went through one full cycle of a pace line and even Ocelot kept us at 21 MPH till she gave up the lead and everyone kept it at the same pace. Even Rocket kept the pace down and we moved down towards Winchester together.

Finally as we passed Winchester we got one more rotation in the pace line before Cossack got back up front and started to pull away. For reasons only know to my male hormones I decided to fall onto his back wheel and hang on for dear life. As we pulled away from the other four riders I noticed one of them had started to close the gap and was gaining on us. Pretty soon I could see it was a green jersey and knew it was Rocket. By Leon he had closed the gap and was sitting on my back wheel. It didn’t bother Cossack one bit as he continued to pull all the way to the top of the saddle and when I looked down at the computer we had averaged 17 MPH.

Once we regrouped at the top of the saddle we were off again and headed down the hill towards Menifee and made the left heading towards Scott road and by now it was all I could do to stay with Cossack and Rocket and I could feel every mussel that I had used Tuesday night. Ocelot like any predator cat must have sensed my weakness and kept taunting me with the prospect of being “chicked” on every little climb.

I fought off one of her last attacks and used about the last match I had just to stay ahead of her. Still we made the turn on Bridge Street and headed passed the dairy and Turkey ranches and back to Domenigoni. Once we turned east I was back on the wheel of Rocket and Cossack as they ran up the back side of the saddle and soon started to fall behind. Duramax closed on me but I managed to stay in front all the way over the saddle and started down the back side towards Leon. As I got close to Rocket I noticed we were still averaging better than 17mph and we didn’t look like we would be slowing anytime soon. Cossack let us catch him and we followed him all the way to Winchester. We regrouped at the red light and I realized this was not in any way shape or form a Recovery ride.

The pace didn’t slow much after we left Winchester where Rocket and Cossack extended their lead over the rest of us. Jim, Duramax and Ocelot chased me down at Sanderson and we headed for the last leg before Kelly’s. Jim was looking forward to coffee and a bit like a horse heading for the barn he was moving along at close to 20mph as we hit the lights green except for Stetson. We saw the Lowes parking lot in the distance and knew we were close to the end of the ride. I took a quick look at my computer and noticed that my average speed was just at 18mph from the start of the ride till the end. Everyone seemed to be rather relieved to be stopping for coffee, smoothies or sodas as we got ready to turn into Lowes.
We rested for a while at Kelly’s and joked about how fast the recovery ride had been. It is always nice to get a chance to cool down a bit at the end of a ride but it is even better to get a chance to visit with people that have become my friends. It may have been a short ride of just over 30 miles but it turned into one of the quickest rides I have had in a very long time.