9/26/2011
By: C. Kent, aka (Superman)



It must be fall because it was cold this morning. At least it was cold when I walked outside to get ready to meet everyone at Burger King. I went back inside and put on a long sleeve jersey and leg warmers. I got to the parking lot and everyone looked about as cold as I was. Still 14 of us were ready to go shortly after 8 am as we rode out onto Latham and then north on Lyon to start the ride. We didn’t get all that far before we heard the dreaded words, “flat” and the group stopped as we watched Jack Rabbit’s pit crew fix his tire.


Once back on the road some conversations restarted and we slowly picked up speed heading north towards Ramona. Looking over my shoulder I could see all of team 4 Seasons with Piranha leading the pack. It was good to see him back after he had to abandon the ride last time because of a bad back. That didn’t seem to be bothering him today as he was riding strong and consistent.

Just as we passed Cottonwood I heard the dreaded call of “flat” again and we stopped to watch the founder of Team Full Throttle change the second flat of the morning. People started to look suspiciously at team 4 Seasons in case there was some intra-team sabotage. Just as I stopped to watch the tire changing clinic I got a call from a new rider that missed our starting and was giving chase as we headed north towards Ramona

Once the tire was repaired we were on our way again and Blood Hound pulled us to Ramona. We made the jog through the housing tract before lining up and heading for State Street. Like about 90 percent of the time we caught the light at State red. For whatever reason that particular light doesn’t tend to trip just because a few bicycles are sitting in the trap. Finally a car pulled up and we were off going north on State heading for Soboba with Highlander on my back wheel.

I stopped the group as we turned onto Soboba and tried to call Donovan to see how close they were behind us. Before I could try and leave a message he pulled up with his friend Gary and introductions were passed around. I split the group at this point and watched as the As and most of the Bs took off and headed for the golf course. I finally got a small pace line going and we started to gain on the back markers of the lead group. we got to the golf course to regroup before the last of the leaders stopped rolling. We were now 16 strong and ready for the next leg of the ride.

The group split once more and I ended up in the chase group following everyone else up to the Ranger Station on Florida at the bottom of the hill heading to Idyllwild. This time there were about 8 people in our group so we were split petty evenly. Just before we passed the trees at the start of the little climb we had T-3 take the lead and pull us all the way to the climb. We pulled into the Ranger Station to see the As relaxed and talking.

We took a few minutes to get to know Donovan and Gary and to tell them a bit about our group. Turns out they know GT-40 pretty well and might join some of us on the Parris Century Saturday. By the time we had shared stories and got ready to head back to Carl’s everyone was feeling pretty good.

Blood Hound and Highlander were the first two to turn west on Florida and it took T-3 and I quite a while to catch them. We pulled up on their back wheel shortly before we entered the trees and then reformed into a pace line till we were out of the trees. Not long after we exited the trees most of the group passed us in a rather fast and long pace line. Gary and Donovan were in the front with D’Artagnon, Wolf, Vortex, Sea Lion, Jack Rabbit, Full Throttle and Piranha rolled past me and never slowed down. We pulled into Carl’s and everyone decided to break for home. In the end Dura max and Ocelot rode home together while Highlander, T-3 and I rode back to Burger King.

It was rather cool and we didn’t get in much more than 30 miles but we had a good time and made some new friends so I would count it as a good day.