10/17/2012 By: C. Kent, aka (Superman) I got up this morning and had breakfast before looking outside to one of those almost perfect mornings. There was very little wind and a clear blue sky and it was almost 60 degrees as I walked out of the house and started riding towards Burger King to see just who would be joining me. To my surprise there was a pretty good group ready to head out of the parking lot by 8am. I pulled out onto Latham and headed to Lyon to turn north followed by Surgeon, Highlander, Dura Max, Digger, Torpedo, T-3, Von Richthofen, Red Rabbit, D’Artagnon, Huntress and Coyote. Not bad for a Wednesday.

It didn’t look like anyone was interested in warming up easy as we headed north past Devonshire. We were picking up speed block by block till Torpedo pulled up next to me to chat. Torpedo pulled ahead at Esplanade and I followed close behind till we got to Cottonwood. We got to the stop sign before the cross traffic but I have a hard time trusting the east bound traffic at that stop sign because we can’t see through the trees to be sure they are stopping. True to my fears a woman in a SUV cruised through the sign while talking or texting on her cell phone. We were glad we had decided to stop at that stop sign even with the west bound traffic waiting for us to cross. Shortly after that near miss we turned on Ramona and headed towards Sanderson.

I fell back in the pack intending to stay in the middle and take advantage of the pull once we were out on the Expressway. Everything was going according to plan until Torpedo started to pick up the pace and Surgeon, D’Artagnon, Highlander, Huntress, Von Richthofen and Digger past me. I dropped back to try and pick up Dura Max and T-3 and noticed Red Rabbit well off of the back struggling with the pace. As we got to Warren I noticed the front group was breaking up and falling apart. Digger was spit off the back and Torpedo with D’Artagnon was riding away from everyone else. There was no panic however because I knew we were stopping at Lakeview to regroup. I took the lead leaving the Valero and pulled over the first hill and half way up the second before running into my max heart rate and getting past by most of the group. We turned on Rider and headed for Evans to start the move south to Nuevo Road.

Once we were out onto Nuevo I followed the group as they started east towards Menifee. Huntress fell back to check on me so I slowly closed in on the back of the group and finally caught a back wheel about the time we got to the little bridge. Things got easier after the bridge even as the pace once again picked up. From the bridge to Menifee it is pretty easy to cruise at 20 mph without breaking a sweat.

I got back in front and pulled us around the corner on Menifee and up to Central before Most of the group pulled in front of me and started a pace line behind D’Artagnon. By the Nursery Torpedo pulled around and closed with the lead group while T-3 and I made sure to pick up Dura Max and stayed together to Mapes. The rest of the group went straight to the AM/PM while three of us turned on Mapes and went over to Briggs. That moved turned out to be a shortcut for us because we didn’t have to stop at the AM/PM. We got to Chris’s first and waited for the rest of the group for about 6 minutes. Coffee and Conversation took up another 20 minutes before we got back on the road and made our way to Stowe.

I got a chance to pull us all the way to California except for Torpedo who had to stand up and ride with a broken seat post. I was still feeling pretty good as we turned north on California but ran directly into a headwind that we suffered with all the way to Stetson. I was back in front on Stetson and felt good enough to pull to the Airport road where D’Artagnon, Dura Max and T-3 left us when we turned to ride past Hanger 1 and they stayed on Stetson.

As soon as we got to Cawston Von Righthofen left us and we followed Highlander pulled us all the way to Sanderson where we regrouped at the light. Huntress took us at a pretty good clip to Lowes and around the back to Acacia. Surgeon and Highlander led the way to Kirby and we finally we made it back to Gilmore and finally back to Burger King where we said our good-byes and headed for home. Like I said it was a great day for a bike ride.