1/27/2012
By: C. Kent, aka (Superman)


Often we have what I like to call easy Friday’s and my plan for today was one of those easy days. We do realize that not every easy ride I plan turns out that way but at least we try. We had a new rider joining us this morning, Gary, but I didn’t know who else was going to be there. Turns out Barracuda, Huntress, Gambler, Bandit, Blood Hound, Wolf, D’Artagnon, Rocket and sea Lion were ready to go today as well. It was just a bit after 8:30 when we trekked down Lyon heading for Ramona.


We took turns pulling all the way to Ramona and then over to State Street. I got back out in front and pulled from state and Ramona all the way to Soboba where I told the group to go play all the way to the golf course. The big dogs jockeyed around for a while and finally they dropped the hammer followed by Huntress and Sea Lion. Blood Hound stayed with me till we were over the second roller and then took off as well. I finally regrouped with everyone at the Golf Course.

After a short break we were back on our way but the ride had morphed a bit and Gambler, Bandit and D’Artagnon decided to head for Saint John’s grade. Rocket left us before we got back the Hemet Street and Wolf Flatted right after Rocket broke off. Huntress, Blood Hound, Gary and Barracuda continued on while Sea Lion and I watched Wolf change his tire. Soon we were headed towards the ranger station ourselves but about 5 minutes behind everyone else. We regrouped once more at the Ranger Station before heading back to Carl’s for coffee and conversation. On the way back down from Cranston station Blood Hound and I got a pretty good jump on the rest of the group but it wasn’t long before Barracuda chased us down.

I managed to say in front or the main group till we caught a red light at Fairview where Blood Hound broke for home. As I pulled up to the light the whole group caught me and we pulled across the intersection together heading past Casino with Sea Lion and Huntress. I felt good enough to try and close and considered getting in the sprint for Carl’s but Wolf decided that would be a bad idea and managed to catch a ride by holding onto my jersey pocket. Huntress took off and got to the Carl’s driveway first. We parked our bikes and went in for another quick break and some energy bars. After a short conversation we were back on New Chicago before turning on Lincoln and heading back to Park for the ride back to Burger King.

There were still half of us left for the ride around park and onto Devonshire and we chatted away even if the day hadn’t turned out quite as warm as they had predicted. But we considered ourselves lucky because the wind they had predicted hadn’t materialized and the ride turned out to be a pretty good one. I got home with only 32 miles on the computer but they were a good 32 miles and I felt the ride had been just about right for a Friday. It was a good day with good people to ride with.