3/14/2011
By: C. Kent, aka (Superman)



If you were to try and describe the perfect day for a ride you would be hard pressed to describe a better day than we had today with little or no wind and not too hot or too cold. We had ten riders and three were returning from a rather long layoff. Everyone was ready by 8:30 so we were off and heading for Acacia just a bit after that.


Once we were all gathered at Kirby and Acacia I had a feeling we were in for a rather quick ride. Even T-3 seem to have extra energy to burn and we moved quickly up Kirby to Cypress and started our turn west through the Housing Track. Just as we got to the corner there was a person walking down the sidewalk and about enter the crosswalk. Two of us turned in front of him but he paid absolutely no attention to us and stepped off the curb oblivious to the eight other riders about to turn the corner right behind the first two. It didn’t matter because everyone managed to miss hitting him but we got the impression that he never looked up to see if anyone was going to run him over or not.
Much to our surprise T-3 kicked it up a notch and pulled us all the way to Johnston and then to Stetson. It seemed as if she was determined to work us a bit once we got out onto Dominigoni and she was right behind Rocket as we made that turn. We were pretty quickly up to 20+ MPH as we headed towards Warren road. Once we started through our rotation and T-3 took her turn we held it at close to 22 MPH. But as aggressive as T-3 was I was about to discover that Wolf was going to be the one to watch today.

Blood Hound took over pulling about Winchester and he kicked it up again to close to 24 or 25 all the way to Leon. Just past Leon Attack Cat decided to pull out of line and jump to the front and it looked like he was making a run at the saddle. Blood Hound wasn’t far behind but with Attack Cat pulling away it seemed to inspire D’Artagnon to make his move just a bit early for this group. Rocket took off after D’Artagnon and I grabbed Rocket’s wheel. Right in my shadow was Wolf moving in for the kill. We got past Blood Hound and ran down Attack Cat and made a sprint of it heading up the saddle. What I didn’t know at the time was that Wolf was nipping at my heels and ready to pass if there had been room. At the top of the saddle you could have covered all four of us with a 4x8 sheet of plywood. We regrouped at the top of the saddle and laughed about how close the sprint was even with D’Artagnon holding us all off.

After Dura-max, T-3 and Ocelot arrived we got ready to push off towards Murrieta and Sea Lion, who had rejoined us for the first time since Palm Springs, had to turn back for a school function with his kids. However we stopped once again at Carl’s just before Murrieta Road and regrouped picking up Double Time who had been trailing us about 3 miles behind. We broke into two groups of five and headed for Goetz. The climb up Goetz was one of my better one and one where I managed to keep my heart rate below 150 for the first time in a long time. We waited at the top of the hill and regrouped before making a fast drop down the hill and onto Ethanic before heading east towards Murrieta.
Once we got to Murrieta the group started to connect again and soon we were a pack of 7 shortly after turning south towards McCall. Double Time and Wolf were now firmly in the pack and formed into a pace line as we moved down Murrieta. It didn’t take long before Rocket, D’Artagnon, Attack Cat and Blood Hound were setting the pace once we turned onto McCall. Not that Double Time, Wolf and I were far behind it was just that the other four were beginning to zero in on the McCall climb.

Attack cat started the Climb first with D’Artagnon and Rocket close behind. Blood Hound was sitting in fourth. I followed Blood Hound with Wolf and Double Time close behind me. For some unknown reason my legs were still feeling pretty good as D’Artagnon and Rocket pulled out to pass Attack Cat. Much to my surprise Blood Hound started to gain on Attack Cat and I found myself gaining on Blood Hound. Once Blood Hound passed Attack Cat I seemed to find some extra energy and started to close and passed him as well. Double Time was falling back but Wolf was hot on my back tire. At the flat just before the top of the hill I caught Blood Hound and passed. However Blood Hound wasn’t finished and he came back on me. It was just before we reached the top of the hill where Wolf jumped in front of both of us to be the third man up the hill. We regrouped once more before heading down the back side of McCall and heading for Chris’s.
Double Time and I got a late start on following the main group after we discovered Dura-Max, T-3 and Ocelot weren’t going to stop at Chris’s and we caught the light red at Menifee so we made a quick turn and headed to Simpson. We were still behind the main group at Lindenburger and were not closing as we got close to Leon. So we went straight to Winchester and managed to arrive at Chris’s just before the faster animals arrived for coffee.

Coffee and conversation were in order today but we didn’t stay all that long before we were ready to hit the road for home. For reasons only known to the girls at Chris’s the coffee seemed to give me some extra boost and I quickly latched onto Blood Hound’s back wheel till we got to Stowe. From there I pulled all the way to California and then Stetson and finally to the airport feeling as if I was a rested as I was at the beginning of the ride.

We didn’t slow down much coming by the airport and soon found ourselves sitting at the light on Sanderson waiting to head north towards Lowes. Blood Hound pulled us all the way to Lowes and then onto Acacia and finally back to Gilmore. I looked down at my cycle computer and was impressed with the mileage and time. When I got home I had 44 miles on the clock with 2 hours and 22 minutes of riding time. Like I said earlier you couldn’t have ordered up a much nicer day for a bike ride. I am glad we live where we do and that I know the people I know and can call them friends.