7/25/2011
By: C. Kent, aka (Superman)


As the song goes it was just another day in paradise when I looked outside first thing this morning. I got dressed, filled my water bottles, drank a cup of coffee, had breakfast and headed out of my front door to join my friends on what I planned for a good challenging ride. By the time I pulled into Burger King several riders were waiting and several were arriving after me. In fact by 8am we had 16 riders and two groups that I might start calling a team. Team 4 Seasons, made up of Highlander, Tax Man and Spartacus, plus team Full Throttle, made up of Full Throttle, dart and Jack Rabbit. As soon as everyone was ready we pulled out onto Latham and headed for State Street.


Once we were headed north I started playing with my bike computer trying to check my cadence as we crossed one street after another. Highlander pulled up next to me to engage me in conversation before we ended up going way too fast for the warm up part of our ride. But I wasn’t the only one that must have been eager to roll on today’s ride because looking back I could see we were all packed together more like a swarm of bees than a pace line.
After Cottonwood Blood Hound pulled in front of me and the pace picked up slightly as we closed on in Ramona Drive. Blood Hound almost made a wrong turn but was corrected well before the rest of the group followed him east rather that turning west toward Sanderson. I pulled up next to him and we all made the turn on Ramona together. Double Time pulled up next to me and stated he would start the pull once we got onto Ramona Expressway while he still had plenty of energy. For some reason he thought he might be tired by the time we got back to Ramona. So far I was feeling pretty good.

Double Time took the lead heading to Bridge Street but he quickly pulled too far away from the group and we risked blowing up the pace line if I tried to close with him. We had the added problem of the lane not being wide enough to rotate through the line. Still we managed to make it to bridge and hear towards Gilman pretty much in one long line. Everyone seemed to take a turn playing on the way to Gilman and at one point Wolf and Ocelot took off in a sprint leaving several of us watching as they attempted to run down the figure of a quickly receding Dura Max. Here is where team Full Throttle came into play. Full Throttle sent Dart and Jack Rabbit after Surgeon so they could pull him up to him like a Domestique in the tour. We finally all stopped and regrouped at Gilman and Bridge.

As we headed back towards Sanderson Blood Hound took off on a run by himself and I had the rest of the pace line following me. T-3 was very impressive in staying towards the front of the pack almost all the way to Sanderson where we regrouped briefly and made the run back to Ramona and State Street. Once we got to Soboba Canyon it was every man for himself as Rocket and Blood Hound pulled us through the rollers and finally Surgeon sprinted ahead after I fell in to try and take a turn pulling for Rocket and D’Artagnon. I was passed by D’Artagnon and Blood Hound and finally Rocket but I managed to catch a back wheel and stayed behind D’Artagnon as he reeled in the group in front of us with Wolf closing on the back of the breakaway group like a man possessed. Still I was with the first 4 as we topped the hill at the Golf Course and regrouped for the run over the river and down Washington.


For some reason I was still feeling pretty good after the river crossing sprint and we quickly made our was past Hemet Street and onto Cedar where we had planned on turning left and following it around to Florida and Fairview. Just as we made the turn Ocelot called out flat and about half of us pulled over while she fixed her tire. It was a short trip down Cedar till it turned into Fairview and we made the last turn to go to Carl’s for coffee. Quite a few of the group stopped and we had a good time talking and telling war stories before heading for home. We split up and D’Artagnon, Full Throttle, Dart and Jack Rabbit went south before heading west while Dura max and Ocelot headed east leaving the rest of us to ride up to Lincoln and head towards Park, still with plenty of spring in our step as they say.

We lost Blood Hound as he broke off for home first and the rest of us continued on towards Santa Fe before dropping down to Latham and back over State Street. It was good to see so many riders enjoying themselves today and it was good to see how much energy people had after almost 40 miles of riding. By the time I got home I had almost 42 miles and a smile on my face. Yes it had been another day in Paradise.