9/18/2010
By: C. Kent, aka (Superman)



I got up this morning expecting to join Hit man on a short quick Saturday morning ride. The weather looked good and I was just a bit tired from Friday but it seemed like good plan. I got to Burger King First and waited to see who would show up. Duramax was the next to arrive followed by Mike S, Gary, Metric Man, Huntress, Hit man and T-3. Not bad for a last minute ride plan. We left and headed for Acacia and then Kirby before working our way over to Sanderson. This was the first time I have seen Gary on a road bike and I have to admit I was impressed.


We had planned on breaking into two groups and Huntress was going to lead the B group. We rode through the housing track towards Johnson rather easily and I thought it just might be a recovery ride. Heading down Sanderson should have told me it might be a bit quicker than a recovery ride but I still had high hopes for the turn onto Domenigoni. When we got to the turn it was decided to turn right and head for Leon rather than go straight to Bautista.

Soon Gary and Metric Man started to pull away and Hit man fell back to let us know where he was going to turn around. Then he took off after Gary and Metric Man followed by Huntress and Mike. Duramax, T-3 and I followed about 100 yards behind till we all caught up at the Warren Road light.

Mike, T-3, Duramax and I saw the rest of the group heading back east on Domenigoni well before we got to Leon and I started to notice a noise from my drive train. We were well behind the rest of the group heading back towards Winchester. We stopped a time or two to adjust my derailleur and I felt we had gotten close to eliminating the noise but it still didn’t go away whenever I applied torque like leaving a light or going uphill. Finally we regrouped at State and Domenigoni and after running up to Chambers and working over to the golf course I stopped one more time to try and adjust my rear derailleur. It was here that things went bad for some of us. Metric man tossed a chain and after putting it back on the chain-ring he promptly broke it after remounting and managed to fall over in the process. Huntress volunteered to go get her truck and SAG for Metric and I decided to ride back with her to get my bike checked out at the LBS.

Duramax and T-3 retraced their route to check up on Metric man and Hit Man, Gary and Mike headed for Fairview. By the time Duramax and T-3 got to Fairview the three lead riders had decided to run down Soboba rather than up Bautista. So out of 8 riders we covered at least three of the directions on the compass. The Shop discovered the problem with my derailleur and Metric took his bike home for a new chain. So at least all is well that ends well and 5 of the 8 riders got in a good ride today.