1/13/2012
By: C. Kent, aka (Superman)


Because it is getting close to the Palm Springs Century we have planned on extending some of our rides in the coming weeks and today was one of those days. It looked like it might be warm enough and even though they predicted some morning wind we decided to take a chance and put in 50 miles. Now all we needed was to see how many wanted to roll the dice and give it a try. I shouldn’t have worried however because we had 9 riders by 8:30 and even Huntress was there early.

We pulled up to the light at Gilman and Florida with a well balanced group easily moving to Acacia and then Kirby before quickly moving through the housing track and out onto Johnston.


I felt pretty good except it didn’t seem like my breakfast wanted to fully digest and I had a brick in my stomach. Still I was looking forward to this ride and so far the weather had been co-operating and by 9am there wasn’t much wind. My only other concern was keeping my heart rate down to make my doctor happy till my next checkup. We made the left turn onto Sanderson and were rewarded with a green light at Stetson. We rolled past Wally World and Blood Hound started to move to the front to get ready to start the pull once we turned west on Domenigoni.

Once pointed west Blood Hound started to pull towards Warren and soon has us rolling along at close to 24MPH. Ferret and Vortex pulled around me to get on his back wheel but I caught him at the light on Warren and asked him to calm it down a bit to keep the whole group together as long as possible. Once Blood Hound gave up the lead Vortex took over and pulled us after Winchester. Soon Huntress got impatient and pulled to the front to take a pull. Seems as if she felt Blood Hound and Vortex simply pulled too long and didn’t give the rest of us a chance. Soon however Full Throttle dropped the hammer and took off with Ferret and Blood Hound in hot pursuit. The rest of us closed on them and soon we were attacking the bottom of the hill. Centaur jumped out and attacked and managed to pull the hill in front of the rest of us.

We took a few minutes to catch our breath and I tried to let my heart rate drop without setting off any Claxton’s in my doctor’s office. By the time I had finished half of my water bottle I was almost back to normal and we got ready to head down the saddle to Lindenburger to start the run north towards Florida and the gas station on Menifee.

It didn’t take us long to ride down to Lindenburger and then to the light on Simpson. Huntress informed us that she would be turning back before the end of the ride but she stayed with us as we turned onto Heritage and then again on McCall. Finally we turned onto Menifee and Full Throttle took off with Blood Hound towards the AM/PM and our stop for water and a nature break. After we were ready to hit the road Huntress decided to head for home while we headed for Nuevo on Menifee. Once past Mapes the pace picked up quite a bit and we pushed hard all the way to Nuevo before turning left and heading down to Evans. We spread out a bit on our way to Ramona and as we got close we were greeted with a hard wind. We fought that wind all the way back to Lakeview and then headed back south towards Nuevo and worked our way over to Central.

Once back out onto Menifee Ferret, Blood Hound, Highlander, Vortex and Centaur decided to pick up the pace heading back to Mapes and I was seriously thinking about just letting them go but Full Throttle and Jack Rabbit decided to fall back and stay with me. We made it to Briggs and worked our way over to Grand when Full Throttle mentioned that he neglected to tell Jack Rabbit that today was a half century and I do believe I noticed Jack Rabbit giving him the evil eye. As we got back to Winchester Full Throttle and Jack Rabbit headed for home and I turned for Chris’s to join the main group for coffee and conversation before heading back to Stowe and heading for home ourselves.

Once we got in single file to let a car pass we simply decided to stay in a pace line and ride all the way to California the Stetson and back to Warren. Vortex pulled all the way back to the airport where Blood Hound and I continued on to Sanderson while they turned to ride past the airport. I left Blood Hound at Sanderson and rode down to Johnston to head for home myself.

It was time to down shift and spin my way home and get the lactic acid out of my legs. Kirby, Lyon, Elk, Palm were passed in order and I got home with 54 miles on my computer. Not bad for and old guy if I say so myself.