By: C. Kent, aka (Superman) 8/28/13 As I headed for the meeting place of our group ride today I thought about why we rode together as DVV? It has to be more than the love of bicycling because we could still love to ride by ourselves. It must be the spirit of friendship we have developed and the challenge we experience together. That may also be the hard part for me. What is a challenge for me may not be for many of our better riders. And if the ride is a challenge for the better riders is it too much for the rest of us? Today was going to be a challenge for me and an old nemesis, Gibbel road. It would be the first time I faced this climb in more than a year and the first time in a year I planned on going all the way to the top without stopping. Digger was waiting for me and said that Dura Max had gone to pick up T-3 to go on a different ride. Bloodhound and Bulldozer showed up as did Surgeon, Red Rabbit and Highlander. Dragon Slayer was burning up the road from Nuevo after going back to get his shoes and Huntress arrived just before Hawk and Gambler. Shadow sent me a text saying he would join us on the road and MacGyver pulled for up sporting some new wheels on his bike. Not a bad turn out for a ride Gambler had warned me about using the word Gibbel in the description. We headed down Gilmore just after 8am.

To be honest I felt pretty good as we turned onto Acacia and rolled down to the light on Kirby. We turned south and Bloodhound took off. he didn’t get far before Bulldozer flashed by and headed for Cypress. It was way too early in the ride for me to expend that much energy giving chase so I led the rest of the group to cypress and started west towars Johnston and Sanderson. We turned back north to Wentworth and then west again to get to the airport road.

I was still in the front as we pulled out onto Stetson and stayed there all the way to Warren. Once we were headed for California street Surgeon took the lead only to watch Bloodhound fade into the distance chasing Bulldozer. As we rounded the corner on California and headed for Stowe Dragon slayer pulled out front and at first I grabbed onto his wheel. But my focus wasn’t on chasing anyone it was saving my legs for Gibbel. We rounded onto Stowe with Surgeon in the front of our group until Huntress pulled around and created a gap. I went after her with Highlander and soon she had us moving at a pretty good clip towards the old metal barn and the Winchester Market parking lot for a regroup.

I could almost see Gibbel in my mind as we turned south on Winchester and headed for Domenigoni. We were in two separate pace lines till we got to the dump road and then made it to Domenigoni as one. At the light I was pretty sure we would break into two groups once the A group got wound up and I had every intention of keeping my pace steady so I could hit Gibbel relatively fresh with relaxed legs. When the A did go by I told Dragon Slayer I would take the B group with me and let him go, The Bs worked as a team and rotated through a pace line till we got to Warren and then we broke apart after we got to Searl. I told Huntress to go after Hawk and Surgeon and I would pull Highlander and Digger to State Street. Highlander decided not to take the climb and Surgeon pulled over at the bottom of the very first grade. At this point I blocked out everyone else’s effort and concentrated on my conquering Gibbel. Digger followed me to the first of the big climbs and I saw Several riders coming back down. Bulldozer was really cooking as he went by. Soon several other rides went by and I lost sight of Digger as I made the first summit sitting down and spinning about 70 rpm. I saw Hawk coming back down the second climb just as I had to downshift into 34x28. This was getting a little harder to spin and I had to mash and shift into 34x32 to crest the next summit. I saw MacGyver on the last climb just before I started up and heard him say something about it being a hard climb. I started out in 34x28 but soon was back in32 and thinking about dropping into granny when I crested again with a heart rate still in zone 2. I had beaten the hill and once I reached the end of the pavement turned to rejoin the group at the bottom of the hill. We headed back to state and started to work our way over to Thornton.

We got out onto Stetson and headed for Columbia and then over to Crest. Highlander and Digger didn’t turn with us and we didn’t see them when we came back out off of Lake onto Stetson. We regrouped on Fairview and then made a quick run north to Florida and finally to Carl’s for coffee. There was only about half of us left to ride back to Burger King and both Digger and I left the group at Palm. I got home with 38 miles on my computer and the satisfaction of knowing I had accomplished a good climb, for me anyway. The best part however may have been sharing this moment with friends, because they are among the few who care when something positive happens in our life. It is good to ride and better to ride with friends.