11/14/2011
By: C. Kent, aka (Superman)

It was a clear blue sky that greeted me as I got ready for our ride today. It was still cool but a base layer and long finger gloves were about all I needed as I headed out of my door and started towards the meeting place at Burger King. It looked like it would be a great day for a ride and a test of my bike set up. I had gone back to the measurements of my bike fitting last year just to see if it had any benefit. It felt better as I was cruising down Palm. Much like Friday it was a small group but at least we had a few more riders and we headed down Latham and north on Lyon.


Rocket started with us but decided he hadn’t recovered sufficiently to do the whole ride and left us before we got to Menlo. Snow Goose stayed with us as we slowly picked up speed. We finally dropper her just before Ramona but I went back to get her and Tax Man and I pulled her all the way to Warren Road where she broke off and headed for home. Tax Man and I discussed just cruising along rather than trying to chase the others down but soon we were hitting the pedals hard all the way to Bridge. We gained on them but didn’t catch them till we got to Gilman. As we sat there we noticed a lone rider coming up on us only to discover Piranha had decided to join us.

We took off on Gilman heading for Sanderson and as soon as I dropped off of the lead Blood Hound took the group and left Tax Man and I to play catch up. We caught them at Ramona Expressway and headed to State Street before heading back north towards Soboba.

Up to this point the bike fit was working better than I expected. I was able to use my larger leg muscles and did seem to have a bit more power available. I stayed with Centaur and Blood Hound all the way to Soboba and we stopped to regroup before heading to the golf course. Just before the last slight climb before the golf course driving range Centaur dropped a bottle and I went back to pull him up towards the lead group. We regrouped once more at the golf course and then continued on to Carl’s without Piranha who decided to head for home. After coffee and conversation six of us headed back towards Burger King.

There was still a lot of energy left in the group as we headed west on Lincoln and turned onto Palm and past the animal farm. Halfway around the hill we moved over to Devonshire and still the pace was up as we headed to Santa Fe and the jog over to Latham. Blood Hound had to stop by the cars and get his jacket and the rest of us had a short visit before heading home ourselves. Riding to and from Burger King I ended up with 39 miles and new muscles that were sore. Change has it’s price.