3/07/2011
By: C. Kent, aka (Superman)


We were warned that it might rain today and when I looked outside this morning it sure looked like it could start any minute. Still in my area it was still dry and it was warmer than it had been in a while so I put on my cycling clothes and headed out of my front door.

When I got to the parking lot to meet up with the group I didn’t see many riders. In fact it took me a minute before I noticed Wolf riding in big circles on the north side of the lot. Once looking in that direction I noticed Highlander was unloading his bicycle. A few minutes after I parked my bike Traveler rode up on his new flat bar. As time went by it was clear there was only going to be 4 of us heading out to Soboba and the ranger station. Because Traveler felt his flat bar was a lot faster than his MTB I thought he might join Wolf, Highlander and me on our run to Soboba. He stayed right with us as we turned off of Latham and headed down Lyon towards Ramona.


Looking at the sky behind us we could see the clouds were getting pretty thick to the south and the streets were wet to the north so we were pretty sure in had rained there this morning. There was a bit of a hole in the clouds in the South east but everything up against the mountains looked pretty socked in. Wolf kept teasing me about setting up a ride on a day when it had scattered showers all over the county. Rain showers or not we were still pretty dry as we headed north towards Ramona.

We continued on to where Lyon and Ramona crossed and headed east towards State Street. We were in luck and the wind was only slightly in our face but mostly on our right side. We more or less took turns pulling as we got close to State and while Wolf, Highlander and I got in the left turn lane Traveler decided to go straight through San Jacinto to the east while we went north to Soboba.

Highlander decided he was going to take the lead and pull us all the way from Ramona to Soboba and that is just what he did. Wolf and I were more than happy to fall in behind and catch a break to the beginning of the turn on Soboba. Once heading east again I got back in the lead to pull us at a reasonable pace through the canyon and up to the golf course. Highlander stuck to my back wheel like a trailer till we got to the golf course and regrouped so Highlander could have a quick drink.

We took off again and made the turn onto Shaver to cross the river bed and ran into a small amount of rain. It wasn’t heavy but it was cold and it didn’t last much past the turn onto Mountain where we noticed the clouds were heavy up against the mountains and it even looked like it might be raining on the Far East side of town. We made the decision to cut the ride short and stop at Carl’s rather than try and make it to the Ranger Station. We were still pretty dry and thought it might be nice to stay that way. We didn’t stay long and we didn’t see Traveler again so just the three of us headed for home with the wind building and the clouds getting thicker behind us.

We got back to Burger King before it started to rain and before the wind picked up to an uncomfortable degree. It wasn’t a long or fast ride but it was a good one none the less. At least we all seem to realize that any day we get to ride as a group on our bicycles beats any day when we are stuck at home just watching TV. With that in mind it was a good day rain or not.