8/10/2011
By: C. Kent, aka (Superman)


I rolled out of bed and had breakfast, downed a cup of coffee, showered and put my riding gear on and sat back to watch morning news before heading out the door to ride to meet up with my friends for a ride west this morning. About 7:15 this morning I moved my bike out to the street only to realize it was cool and foggy. I have to admit I was surprised and thought I might have to go back in and put on arm warmers but figured I could make it and it should get warmer before we got too far into the ride. I got to Burger King to see Centaur and someone new standing by his truck. Jino was joining us for his first group ride and we had a reasonable one for him today. About 15 of us pulled out onto Gilmore at 8am. We quickly worked our way to Kirby and headed south.


As we moved towards Cypress Puma was right behind me followed closely by T-3 and Huntress. Full Throttle was by himself but looked like he wanted to push the pace today and Sea Lion has been getting stronger every ride. Dura max and Ocelot had promised to keep an eye out for any stragglers today so I felt a bit free to play today and let the group stretch out if they wanted to. I didn’t expect that Blood Hound would have to abandon the ride in the first two blocks because of a cut tire. Still we had picked up T-3 after we started so we still had about 15 riders as we headed towards Johnston.

We caught the light at Sanderson and had a long wait till it changed to give us a green arrow and headed south on Sanderson. T-3 led us to Stetson and we passed Wal-Mart as some of the big dogs started to move forward. Today Centaur, Gambler, Surgeon and Full Throttle would be pushing the pace followed by Wolf, Huntress and Sea Lion. Dura max, Ocelot, T-3, Jino and I would follow not far behind at a rather quick cruise.

Ocelot was riding up front and on one of her pulls between Warren and Winchester it was hard for the rest of us to keep up. But soon we rejoined Sea Lion and Double Time and they helped us make the run to the Saddle. We got to the top of the saddle and regrouped with everyone else. There was plenty of huffing and puffing to go around.

It took us a little time to catch our breath and while we rested Puma started to feel a bit under the weather. He sat down and rested while we waited for everyone to get ready to shove off again and once we got the thumbs up sign from everyone we started down the saddle towards Menifee.

Puma broke off and headed for home to discover what was bothering him, later on I discovered he had a problem similar to what had happened to Shadow once, the leg elastic on his bibs were cutting off the flow to his legs. The rest of us made it to Menifee and started our approach to the small hill just past Holland. I took advantage of Wolf who was riding a bike with the saddle way too low and attacked the hill. Wolf couldn’t answer without knocking himself in the chin with his knees, but then what are friends for?

I waited for the stragglers at the top of the hill and half of the group went ahead to the regroup point on Newport. The group I was with made it to Scott then Haun before turning on Holland and finally Murrieta. Once we regrouped we headed over to McCall and back east towards the Hospital. Huntress and T-3 were riding strong and chased me all the way to the top of McCall. Both of them have been riding strong all day.


It took us a little while to regroup and while we were waiting we decided to ride to the airport and Hanger 1 for coffee and a chance at Bamby’s baked goods. Once the decision was made where we were going we expected Double Time would drop the hammer and beat us all down the hill and out to Simpson.

Double Time’s desire for coffee and pastries aside it was Huntress and Full Throttle that blasted down the hill and onto Heritage before finally getting caught at the light on Lindenberger. We were all back together by the time the light turned green and only suffered one flat before we got back to Leon. We had the traditional sprint down the dump road which Gambler won handily and then we were back on Winchester and making the turn onto Stowe

We didn’t take much time getting to California and then Stetson and it seemed as if more and more of us were being spurred on by the thought of coffee. Not everyone stopped at Hanger 1 because Gambler and T-3 had work to do. But shortly after Full Throttle, Surgeon and Centaur pulled into the parking lot Huntress and I pulled up behind them.

Once everyone else arrived we had time for coffee and conversation but we didn’t get to order and baked goods because Bambie was out for a while recovering from surgery. You could almost see Double Time getting ready to cry. Still it was a great day and we watched the airplanes take off and land while we talked and got out coffee blood level back to normal. We left in two waves and headed for home.

I rode next to Centaur and we talked about how nice the weather had been for this ride and before we knew it we were back to Sanderson and headed north. It doesn’t take long to get back to Lowes and turn into the parking lot and as we did I looked back and saw that our new rider Jino was still with us and still smiling.

Once back at the parking lot we rejoined Huntress, Surgeon, Wolf, and Centaur where we continued our conversations from earlier. We made arrangements to hook Jino up with some spare bike parts and passed around phone numbers so everyone could stay in touch. I headed for home as some of them were still talking and made it to my house with 43+ miles on the computer. To me it was another great day to be with friends and to be on a bicycle.