1/16/2012
By: C. Kent, aka (Superman)


To say the least I was surprised to see rain Sunday and disappointed when they predicted rain for Monday but I put a ride together for the day none the less. Then as I laid in bed Sunday night it rained even harder and maybe just moved the little storm through a bit early giving us a window so we could get in a quick 30 miles this morning. I put on a base layer and a long sleeve jersey with a warm skull cap and headed out to the parking lot to see if I was the only once willing to put in the miles on a less than perfect day. By 8:30 it was a small group consisting of Highlander, Vortex, Wolf, Tax man and me.


I was planning on being good and keeping the ride easy and more or less cruising the whole ride. I knew it would be hard with men like Wolf who always pushes like his namesake nipping at the heels of its prey. Add to run out that Vortex who tends to run out front and push pace and it could be a hard ride to control. I couldn’t even count on Tax Man to keep the pace down because he was looking unusually frisky as we headed out to start our run south.

The lights weren’t co-operating as much as they have in the past and we caught one light after the other red. We had a long wait at Johnston and Sanderson and just caught the light red at Sanderson and Stetson. Still we were moving easily and talking comfortably as we passed Wally World and headed to Mustang. Vortex got out front and pulled us toward Domenigoni. I put myself in the middle of the pack with Vortex and Tax man in front and Highlander and Wolf in back.

We pulled out into the turn lane for Domenigoni just as the light turned green. Typically that is a short fast light but for today it held up for all of us to glide single file through the light and head back east towards State Street. When we got to Searl Wolf and Vortex decided to ride to the Marina while Highlander, Tax man and I continued on towards State. We didn’t get that far before Highlander gave out a shout and I noticed Tax Man in a pile lying down in the bike lane. By the time we got back to him he had bounced back up and dusted himself off while inspecting his bike. He followed Highlander and I to State where we pulled over for a closer inspection before heading for Cactus Valley.

We regrouped as we came back from Cactus Valley and formed a pace line all the way back past Sage and back past the gold course to State Street. Everyone seemed content to let me pull back past Newport and to the housing tract at McSweeney. So far I was still feeling relaxed and thought my attempt to follow my doctor’s orders and keep my heart rate down was working pretty well. Still knowing Wolf like I do I wasn’t sure things would stay as calm as they had been so far. I would be proved right later.

After we moved back out onto State Wolf and Vortex took the lead and started the pull back down to Domenigoni and it was a pretty good pace at that. Wolf slowed down the pace after we moved past the light on Domenigoni. I had no intention of getting in front and would have been perfectly satisfied to follow Wolf and Vortex all the way to Chambers but Wolf took that moment to drop the hammer and almost like a dog chasing a stick I took off after him. I had to work hard to close but once in the draft it was all good as he laughed about baiting me.

We worked our way up to Stetson and I would have been perfectly happy to take a short cut on Lake when Wolf once again talked me into going all the way to Fairview. This time I followed Wolf all the way to Fairview before he gave up the lead and I found myself in front. Yes I decided to give the Fairview sprint a try and Wolf and Highlander jumped on my wheel and ran me down all the way to the bridge. Wolf pulled a text book double pass at the bridge and pulled ahead. Once again Wolf was over laughing about his ability to get me to push myself even when I shouldn’t. We continued on to Carl’s for coffee and conversation. About 20 minutes later we were headed for home.


Vortex had another problem with his front tire but it seemed like a slow leak to he simply pumped it up and we took off for Lincoln to start the ride west. Vortex seemed to be on a mission and soon was pulling away from the rest of us and we ended up having to chase him all the way to State Street. It turned out he was in a hurry to get back to the car before his tire lost air again. The group was still giving chase as I broke off on Palm and headed for home. I got home with 33 miles on the computer and a chill all the way to my bones. A hot showed felt great.