2/09/2011
By: C. Kent, aka (Superman)


Watching the weather report I was a bit concerned that it might rain Tuesday and was worried that Wednesday might be a bit windy but I was assured it would be light so I put together a ride and crossed my fingers. Running out on Ramona Expressway with the chance of wind blowing in our face is never a great thought but today proved a bit different.

I got to Burger King and noticed several riders were already there. Most of them were still unloading their bikes but I could tell we were going to have a good group. Dura-max was there as was T-3, Ruby Tuesday, Blood Hound, Highlander and Wolf. Rocket, Gambler, Sea Wolf, Double Time and Cycobob pulled in and Ink Jet showed up to ride. To my surprise Huntress was early and Traveler and Raptor were ready to leave as the C group. Counting me we had 14 A and B riders and 2 C riders. Before we could start Gambler discovered a Goat Head in his tire and we got to watch him quickly change a flat


At 8:30 we headed out onto Latham and then onto Lyon heading for Ramona Road. For some reason we seemed to move rather quickly down Lyon and were well passed Menlo with no wind bothering us. We were rolling along at a pretty good clip and I can only imagine how fast Ramona Expressway was going to be. I even made a comment to Rocket that we had about as many riders today as we get during the summer so I am pulling for some good sized groups when the weather warms up.

We turned onto Ramona Road and headed for Sanderson and I took my first head count and was pleased to see we still had 14 riders. They were also all staying together even after we had cruised down Lyon at close to 19 and were doing close to 20 heading to Sanderson. It was understood that if an A group developed I was going to let them go and try to keep the pace down for the B group all the way to Nuevo. As soon as we made the turn onto Ramona Expressway the A group did develop and started to pull away. I took the lead of the B group and tried to keep it down to a reasonable pace. By the time we had rotated halfway through the pace line and Huntress got to the front we were running close to 25 MPH. Just before we got to Nuevo I took my eyes off of T-3 and Ruby Tuesday to see we had hit 29.1.

We regrouped at Lakeview and I took over pulling till we got to Nuevo. The wind had started to pick up and I was lucky to get between 16 and 18 MPH and we regrouped once more right after making the left off of Nuevo. I once more encouraged the A group to run at their own pace once we got onto Menifee and headed towards Mapes and stayed with the B group at what I considered a reasonable pace. We all made it onto Mapes within a few yards of each other and stayed in a pack as we headed towards Briggs. For a change we didn’t get to race any small dogs going up the slight grade and all made the turn towards Florida.

We made it across the street at Florida and worked our way through the housing track as we got back out onto Briggs we started to split up again and Huntress took off to play racer with the big dogs. The rest of us followed in a pace line and we all stopped at Chris’s for coffee and fellowship. 4 riders had to leave early and the rest of us followed a few minutes later. It was planned as an easy flat ride easy ride and more or less it was. We hit very little head wind coming home and I had just over 36 miles on the computer. I think it is safe to say a good time was had by all.