10/15/2010
By: C. Kent, aka (Superman)




Watching the weather reports Thursday night wasn’t the most encouraging thing I had seen all week. They indicated we would have an onshore flow with a deep marine layer and cooling temperatures. I had to wonder how deep and how much cooler? When I got up to retrieve the news paper I could see we had what almost looked like fog just 50 to 100 feet in the air. It was cool but not cold and there was just a chance that we might get just a bit if drizzle out of this clouds. Still it was dry and I had leg warmers and a long sleeve jersey so I was ready to go and looking forward to a good ride today. I could only hope I had a few other riders that were looking forward to it as much as I was. I was pleased when quite a few did show up.


We were just a bit late leaving the parking lot and it seemed as if we were just a touch lethargic as we headed passed Pep-Boys and turned out onto Latham. But we started to warm up a bit after we got out onto Lyon and headed north towards Ramona Road. We have a pretty strong group for a Friday with Gambler, Huntress, Valkyrie, Dura-max, Double Time, Bandit, Rocket, Jeff, (D’Artagnan) Bo, (Buccaneer) and I. At least I felt pretty strong as we turned onto Ramona Road.

At least it wasn’t drizzling as we headed for Sanderson. The streets were still dry but the overcast still wasn’t burning off so we kept a watchful eye on the weather just in case we had to bail out before making it to warren and Ramona Expressway. The clouds seem to have lifted a bit when we looked up Lambs Canyon and it did seem a bit lighter in the west so what I expected was we would be making a hard run west on Ramona Expressway and regroup at the gas station on Lakeview. What I didn’t expect was how easily Valkyrie and Huntress would drop me after I pulled out of the lead from taking my turn at pulling.

To tell the truth it didn’t take a lot to pull out of sight because I don’t think we had 200 yards of sight with the fog today. In fact by 100 yards it was hard to see anything more than just an outline or a rider in front of you. Dura-max and I fell to the back of the pack and more or less cruised at 18 to 20 all the way to Lakeview. We did gain a bit on one or two of the outlines in front of us but still we pulled in after everyone else was stopped at the gas station and regrouped.

We took off again towards Nuevo road on Lakeview and soon found ourselves rolling along at 19 to 21 MPH before regrouping on the downhill heading towards Menifee. The group broke in half at Menifee with Bandit, Gambler, Rocket, Buccaneer, D’Artagnan in the lead group and Double Time, Huntress, Valkyrie, Dura-max and I following. We made short work of Menifee, turned on Mapes and then on Brigs and finally turned on Grand before getting to Winchester and stopping at Chris’s for coffee and conversation.

Dura-max and Rocket pulled us back up Winchester to Stowe as we headed for home. The cool weather was still with us and I found myself pushing pretty hard just trying to stay on the wheel of D’Artagnan as he followed Bandit and Gambler onto Stowe. We made the turn east and slowly but surely the pace picked up till we were once again cruising along about 19 or 20. About halfway down Stowe we noticed Shadow coming towards us and he made a turn to follow us back east.

I turned onto California with Rocket and Dura-max and we ran pretty hard all the way to Warren where I lost Rocket and he put the hammer down to head for home. We all regrouped at the airport and turned onto Stetson together. With the addition of Shadow we still had 10 riders and we made the turn into the Lowes parking lot before 10:45

Being so close to the end of the ride I reflected on how nice the ride turned out to be even on such an overcast day. The A group seems to be building and the B group seems to be getting tighter so it looks like we are doing pretty well. I did get in close to 40 miles today so my mileage for the month looks better than I expected. I had 700 miles last month but I wasn’t expecting much this month because we had a few wet days.

Still the group was still looking strong as we got ready to pull onto Acacia and Double Time took off for Burger King like he still had plenty of energy to burn. I stopped to talk with Huntress, Valkyrie, Double Time and Shadow before heading for home. I am pretty sure it is the social connection our group has that makes us one of the best groups to ride with in the area. Yes we can be competitive but we are also more than willing to help each other out, even if it means the person you help my become a better rider than you are.