1/14/2011
By: C. Kent, aka (Superman)




What a beautiful morning I woke up to this morning. Finally there was blue skies predicted and rather warm weather. I was looking forward to a bit of a longer ride today and I was hoping everyone else was as well. What I didn’t know was it was going to be a day that reminded me of Fastnet force 10 and Bataan.

We had a real good turnout which meant I would have a hard time keeping track of the group either from the front or the back. But still Cycobob, Highlander, Cossack, Bandit, D’Artagnon, After Shock, Ruby Tuesday, T-3, Gambler, Double Time, Dura Max, Ocelot, John, (Ink Jet) and I would be a pretty reasonable group. We left a few minutes after 8:30 and headed down Gilmore towards Acacia.


It was a quick trip to Acacia and on towards Kirby. We collected at the light and waited for it to turn still thinking it would be an uncomplicated if slightly longer ride. We pulled onto Cypress and headed towards Johnston where we picked up Casey Jones who joined us as we moved out to the light at Sanderson. We made the turn and headed south towards Stetson where it seems as if Ocelot had a mechanical problem that I never heard about so they fell behind as we crossed Stetson and headed towards Domenigoni.

The turn onto Domenigoni was fine and we started a reasonable pace line. Casey Jones decided to take off by himself as the rest of us pretty much held a 20 to 22 Mph pace all the way to Warren Road. I pulled over the river crossing and fell back to the back to ride with Highlander and Ruby Tuesday after the first rotation. We caught up with the second half of the group as we got to Winchester and the group spread out in one very long line with D’Artagnon, Gambler, Bandit and Cossack pushing ahead. As I got close to Leon I noticed we had a hot air Balloon that looked like it might be landed in the field next to the highway.

It took us a while to collect at the top of the saddle as we seemed to be cresting the hill in waves. The A guys were waiting for us except for Casey Jones who had gone on ahead and made the run down the hill by himself. It seems as if Cossack must have been riding strong and the A guys laughed about the sprint up the hill and Cossack decided to stay with us till we got to the Am/Pm on Florida

Once it looked like we were all together I yelled back to see if everyone was ready and if anybody was missing. Other discussions were going on so no one spoke up. I discussed where our next stop was and that we would regroup there and asked once again if we were ready to go ready and if anyone was missing and still no one said anything so we got ready to ride down the back side of the saddle and head for Lindenburger before cutting through the Housing Track on Heritage and over to McCall before going out onto Menifee and heading north.
Much to my chagrin I discovered as we got to the AM/PM that had left before Dura max and Ocelot got to the saddle and before T-3 and Ruby Tuesday was ready to take off. We did pick up Casey Jones at the gas station and I called to see where everyone was. In held the group up till Dura Max and Ocelot pulled into the gas station. As we were waiting we say Ruby Tuesday and T-3 ride by and I offered to let the A group take off but they opted to wait. Highlander and Cossack decided to head for home as the rest of us took off on Menifee heading for Nuevo. However as the A group started to pull away the wind started to pick up and I started to be concerned about the rest of the ride.

Huntress, Ink Jet, Cycobob, Double time, Dura max, Ocelot and I made reasonable time getting to Nuevo and turned towards Evens before cutting over to Ramona Expressway to head for home. As we topped the first of the two rolling hills Huntress devised a plan to deal with the wind we encountered at the top of the hill. Here is where the reference the Fastnet comes in. There was a famous sailboat race off the English coast called the Fastnet. One year a storm hit and blew a force 10 on the Beaufort scale and many boats were capsized and people had to be rescued. It didn’t take long before our plan for on minute pulls fell apart. By the time we got to Lakeview I pulled over to let everyone catch up only to discover I was like a drained battery.

It was from this point forward I started to feel we would have to just survive the next ten miles much like the men on Bataan had to. With absolutely no energy reserves left I figured I would simply gear down and just hang on till we got back to Sanderson. We got a bit of a break as we passed Bridge Street but were hit by just a bit more wind on Ramona Road before starting down Lyon. All I could think of was getting a Smoothie at Starbucks when we got back and that is where I headed after Dura max and Ocelot turned left on Latham. I sat at Starbucks and slowly drank my smoothie and ate a sandwich to get enough energy to ride home. 8 or more miles riding against a 20 Knott wind is draining but at least we all made it and it should make the fist 50 of the Palm Springs ride a bit easier. That is my hope anyway. I had just at 49 miles as I got home and decided to take a nap after eating lunch. I feel better after having dinner but hope we can avoid running into strong wind Monday.