10/03/2011
By: C. Kent, aka (Superman)



I would like to say what a difference a day makes and in this case it seems appropriate. Saturday was a scorcher and hard on me, my legs and my sit bones. I wasn’t even sure I was going to be able to ride on Monday. But I started to recover by going to bed real early Saturday and taking a long nap on Sunday afternoon. My plan was to put together a recovery ride for today and that is more or less what I did. I got to the parking lot early and waited for people to start pulling in. Centaur was first and Double Time was last. But as soon as Double Time was ready we headed south on Gilmore to start our day. But before we could leave I had to award the monthly trophy to Full Throttle for successful pushing two new riders on their first Century in 6 hours and 19 minutes.


Piranha and Tax man were starting out up front and I was worried they might be up to pushing the pace beyond what I wanted to run today. They held their pace as we made it over to Kirby and were still there with the addition of Vortex pushing team 4 seasons into a contending force for keeping the pace maybe faster than I wanted. With Rocket, D’Artagnon and Centaur sitting in the group I knew it wouldn’t take much to turn the run down Domenigoni into a 9 miles flat out sprint. They were still in good position on Sanderson and Highlander had joined the leaders putting all 4 riders from 4 Seasons in the front part of the pack.

Once we turned onto Domenigoni Vortex and Surgeon started us off and pulled us all the way past Warren. As we got close to Winchester I got up front and we kept it steady around 20 till I gave up the lead to Highlander. As I drifted back I noticed Dura Max was off the back so I fell back to ride with him up the saddle and to regroup.

We didn’t rest long before it was time to head down the saddle and head to Menifee. So far the pace was very close to what we had done Friday and that is just what I was looking for. We still had a hill on Menifee and that hill often makes or breaks the group but I wasn’t all that interested in attacking than hill. Pretty much like I predicted the group broke in two and I found myself in the following pack.

Somehow we managed to sneak by the lead group as we rolled past Antelope and over the freeway. They had stopped at the AM/PM on the corner and we managed to make it to Newport for our stop. As we waited for some of our riders to come out of the store we saw the first part of the lead group ride by. The second half joined us and we continued on to Bradley and then McCall.

We were spread out quite a bit hitting the hill with T-3 pushing hard out on front of Sea Lion and I. We regrouped on top of McCall and headed for Heritage and the housing tract. I rounded the corner only to notice some of our riders didn’t make the light at McCall and Menifee. I decided to wait for them while the rest of the group headed for Simpson and a run to Winchester.

Once the stragglers caught up we followed the lead group out onto Simpson and could just make out the leaders about a mile ahead of us. I gave up the lead at Leon and Dura Max informed me my rear break was dragging so we stopped to fix it. I was pleased to notice how much easier it was to pedal once the brake was fixed and we quickly made it to Winchester to join everyone else for coffee and conversation.

Like most often we more or less broke for home after coffee and this time left in several smaller groups. Piranha and Vortex left us at Warren, D’Artagnon went straight on Stetson. Highlander caught Dura Max and Double Time at Sanderson and made the light. T-3 turned for home and Tax Man and I rode together back to Burger King. Not a bad day at all. And I do believe I recovered a bit from Saturday.