2/25/2011
By: C. Kent, aka (Superman)

There are times when you don’t expect to get to ride at all. Today was one of those days. If you tried to picture our area like a giant Pac-Man screen with Pac-Man being the area where it was raining or drizzling and we were the Ghost you would get a good mental picture of what things were like. Some riders from both the east and west called to say it was raining where they were and they were staying home. That wasn’t the case at my house so I rode to Burger King just to see who might be there and wanted to give a ride a try.

When I got to the parking lot a rider named Dave was waiting for me. He seemed glad to see that he hadn’t ridden all the way from Sun City to ride by himself. Highlander showed up with Dennis one of his neighbors and it looked like the four of us were going to make up the whole group. Just before we were ready to leave Traveler and his friend Al arrived to make up a C group. We decided because the group was so small we might try to keep the pace down and allow everyone to stay together. That at least was the plan as we pulled out onto Gilmore heading for Acacia.


We moved rather quickly out onto Acacia and headed for Kirby with Dave and Highlander close behind me. It was cold but not as cold as Wednesday and there was rain to the East of us and it looked like there was some to the North West but none to the South. So South on Kirby we went and headed for the railroad tracks and the turn onto Cypress.

We took a quick look west and there didn’t seem to be any rain as we moved out onto Sanderson and headed for Domenigoni. The problem I had noticed was when the weather is cool I simply don’t seem to warm up much and my legs felt pretty tight all the way past the high school. Still I took the first pull west on Domenigoni headed toward Warren Road and held a reasonable pace against a light head wind. I didn’t make it all the way to Warren because the head wind was taking too much out of me so we took turns rotating through the pace line and continued on towards Winchester. Highlander, Dave, Dennis, Al and I pulled away from Traveler rather quickly because no one wanted to get dropped in the head wind so we stayed pretty tight.

We stopped on top of the saddle and waited for Traveler until we noticed rain showers to the west of us moving our way. Al said he would wait for Traveler and that we should go so we didn’t get caught by the rain. If it moved our way Al and Traveler could turn back and try to run from it. We headed down the back side of the saddle towards Lindenburger and then Menifee.
If we turned left at Menifee we were avoiding the Pac-man like clouds in the west and heading towards Holland where we would turn east in hopes of stalling our getting wet. It worked out great because the rain moved north and we moved freely on the reasonable dry Briggs Street. Dave indicated that he might make a break for home before we got back to the Saddle but them changed his mind and opted for hill repeats as we crested the Saddle once again. He followed us down the front side and got ready to make a big turn at Leon as we passed heading for Winchester.

It was down to Highlander, Dennis and me as we turned onto Winchester well ahead of any rain. Without the wind in our face the pace picked up slightly and we managed to make it to Simpson with relative ease. We pointed out Chris’s as we passed and ran together all the way to Stowe where for the first time during the ride I began to feel like my legs had finally warmed up. By the time I was halfway down Stowe I thought I had received a blood transfusion and was pulling better than I had all day. I did have to temper my enthusiasm a bit because I had no idea if Highlander and Dennis were feeling as good as I was. Still they both hung in there and we got to California moving faster than we had all day.

Highlander pulled up next to me on Stetson and said he wouldn’t be stopping at Hanger 1 because he didn’t want to cool down too much before finishing the ride. Dennis and I stopped and were soon joined by Quick-sticks before Traveler and All showed up. A quick cup of coffee or two and we were ready to head for home. Traveler and Al stayed behind as Quick-sticks headed back towards Warren and Dennis and I headed towards Sanderson and home. It was a short quick ride but one that I enjoyed anyway. I(t may have only been 32 miles for me but it was a good 32 miles I never expected to get so it was good.