11/28/2012 By: C. Kent, aka (Superman) My first thought as I looked outside was, “bummer it is cold and foggy.” The problem with cold and foggy is it tend to keep people home and with the possibility of rain on Friday I thought I would need every day I could get to stay on track for my monthly miles for November. So I had breakfast, put on a base layer and my kit plus a windbreaker and headed out of the door to meet up with what I expected to be the hard core riders. I got to the parking lot just in time to see Dura Max talking with Highlander by his van and Digger was riding up. For a while it looked like we were it till Dragon Slayer arrived. A new rider Andy pulled in shortly after that and I noticed Red Rabbit was unloading his car. Huntress got there before D’Artagnon and T-3 got there before Gambler and Rocky. Rocky had to run back and get his water bottle but we agreed to meet at the airport so we started south on Gilmore just after 9am.

They allowed me to lead everyone out onto Acacia and then to Kirby. We had one car in front of us at the light and as soon as the light tripped we headed for Cypress with just a touch of wind and clearing skies. I had looked at the weather report early and all they were predicting was very light winds in the 3mph area from the South east. As I turned onto cypress however it seemed that the wind was pretty much right in my face and it felt like a very heavy 3 mph wind if 3 mph as indeed all it was. It didn’t get any better after we dropped down to Wentworth off of Sanderson. Still it was blowing away the fog so at that point I wasn’t very upset.

As we headed west towards the airport road I was thinking I didn’t want to pull much more because the wind in the face was slowing me down and burning a lot more energy than I wanted to expend. We turned onto Cawston and again onto the airport road to meet up with Rocky. He fell into the group as we headed for Stetson and west towards Warren.

Once out onto Stetson it was obvious there was a lot more wind coming out of the west than these was coming out of the south but I managed to drag us to Warren. We had to wait for traffic at Warren but were soon rolling again and I was still in front fighting a cold and heavy wind that seemed to be bouncing right off of my chest. I managed to hold on till we got to California Street when Gambler came up to give me a break. It was like someone had decided to tow me it felt so good.

I stayed on Gambler’s back wheel as we rounded the corner on Stowe and was prepared to stay there as we headed west again towards Winchester. As I looked up I could see some of the riders were falling off of the back so I pulled out of line so Highlander and Digger could close in on Gambler, D’Artagnon and Huntress. They were joined by Rocky and I finally fell back to pull several riders up to Highlander and Digger. Finally the wind was getting to both Digger and Highlander so I pulled around and took them to regroup with everyone else at Winchester. We had Rabbit head for the old dump road first and then gave chase knowing we should catch him before he got to Leon and Grand. Once again Gambler saved me because now the wind seemed to be coming directly out of the south and once again into our face. We broke into three groups heading for Leon and turned down to Simpson and headed west toward Lindenburger and the park on Heritage. Huntress and Rabbit continued on to McCall and the rest of us followed a few minutes later

It didn’t take us too long to get to McCall ourselves and soon we made the turn west again and sure enough there was the wind waiting to slap us in the face. I was sitting at the light talking about it with Highlander while the rest of the group pulled up behind us. As the light changed the back side of Hospital hill was looking at us and Gambler, D’Artagnon and Dragon Slayer took off to attack it. Rocky and Andy passed me and I stayed ahead of Highlander, Dura Max, T-3 and Digger till we got to the top of the hill where I stopped to wait for the ones behind me. Highlander asked about the climb to Antelope and took off without me. We saw him with Rabbit as we got to Sumner and followed them till we regrouped on Antelope just on the other side of Newport.

We next rode down to Garboni and headed east and guess what? We hit more wind on the nose. Still it wasn’t too bad and soon we were following Dragon Slayer over Menifee and towards Briggs. I pulled in behind Rocky and was surprised to see T-3 power past me. I fell off at first and then ended up chasing her almost all the way to Briggs where Gambler and D’Artagnon went flying by. Now came the run north on Briggs and I fell into the drops for a steady run down to Newport and a regroup before we headed east on Domenigoni.

We were heading back towards the saddle and I was looking forward to a tail wind. It simply wasn’t going to happen today and once again I felt the wind in my face. I started joking with Huntress and Highlander that the weather reports needed to add some different letters in their weather reports. They may have reports saying winds coming from the S SW or N NE but they should add wind for cyclists coming ITF for in the face. We stopped for coffee at Chris’s and took a short break before heading for home on Winchester with the winds once again in our face. Things didn’t get easier as we turned on Stowe.

We more or less stayed together on California and on Stetson and some of the riders stayed on Stetson while other took the airport road back to Sanderson. Several of us stopped back at Burger King and talked before I headed for home and a shower. I decided to take my wife to Hamby’s for lunch after stopping at Casino for some Christmas shopping. What started out as a cold foggy day turned into a pretty good day for a 40 mile ride.