6/03/2011
By: C. Kent, aka (Superman)


For those of us living in Southern California it has been a strange year. We have had some warm days but all in all it has been pretty cool for this time of year. But what is even stranger it has been rather cool on the weekends. So the weatherman has been predicting cool days and wind almost every weekend for the last two months. This weekend was no different so the prediction of a good day for Friday was good news. It didn’t take long waiting at the parking lot to see we were going to have a good group attending today’s ride, even if it is one that allows us to test ourselves a bit.


We had two riders join us that were unexpected when Matt and Dennis showed up by about 8:15 and I could only hope it would be a ride that they would enjoy. Once again 16 of us pushed off towards Acacia ready for another great day of riding. Gambler had presented the perpetual trophy to Centaur for finishing a ride last month after crashing and cutting open his elbow and knee. After the ride he had to get stitches in the elbow and he took a while to heal from his road rash. We were all in a pretty good mood as we turned off of Sanderson and past the air port. We rolled back out onto Stetson and Highlander pushed me all the way past Warren in an ever so slight head wind.

Once on Stowe we spread out as the A group started to strain at the bit and make the dash to Winchester. Once I pulled off the lead on Stowe from California the pace picked up and as I expected the A group pulled to the front. They didn’t drop the hammer as I expected but they did push the pace a bit and were waiting for us as we got to Winchester.

Once we were all back together it was clear we were going to have a little wind in our face going down Winchester to Domenigoni. Once on Domenigoni we split into two groups while the A group headed towards the Marina. For a change the B group wasn’t all that far behind the A group as we turned towards the marina hill. Once up the hill and back we regrouped at the bottom of the hill before starting for the second climb at the Ramona Bowl.

We made quick work of State Street and were out onto Stetson a few minutes later. As we turned towards Ramona Bowl Highlander took the bypass making us run a bit harder trying to get to the top and back down to Crest. It was a quick run east to Lake Street and then back up to Stetson where we lost Matt, Gambler, Bandit and D’Artagnon. I pulled up at Stetson and Fairview and we regrouped once more. We took off again and Dennis, Warden, Sea Lion and I pulled away on the run to Florida and then east to the Ranger Station.

The 4 of us took turn pulling till we got past the yard art place and got ready to enter the trees before the last little climb to Cranston Station. Dennis was in the lead as we left the trees and I pulled around with Sea Lion to make the pull for the parking lot. All of a sudden I noticed Warden dropping the hammer about 150 yards from the driveway. It was all I could do just to hang on so he didn’t drop me like a bad habit. We all pulled into the rest area at Cranston together to find Highlander waiting for us. The rest of the group joined us a few moments later

The ride back down to Carl’s turned out to be smooth and uneventful till Centaur past me and took half of the group with him. They were all parking their bikes as the last four of us turned into the parking lot to stop for coffee. We stopped for coffee and conversation and were all impressed at how nice the ride had been so far. After about 20 minutes we were off heading west for home.

We traveled down Lincoln for a little bit before we discovered that we had somehow left Warden. Turns out he got caught behind a Caddy coming out of the parking lot and was just out of sight around the corner. He soon caught up and we all rode together till Dura-max and Ocelot left us at Park.

Sea Lion pulled off at Palm and I stayed with the group till we got back to Burger King. We stopped and talked while everyone loaded up to go home and Phoenix changed into her street clothes. I took off for home as Warden, Barracuda and Highlander were still talking and got home with 45 miles on the clock. Not bad for and easy Friday ride with light winds.