By: C. Kent, aka (Superman) After a rather energetic ride Monday I was a bit reticent about setting up a ride halfway up the hill to Mountain Center. But Huntress suggested it and Quicksilver is always ready for any climbing so I plotted it, posted it and set up an alternative route. Now all I had to do was get up this morning, have breakfast and head to Burger King for coffee. Digger and I were the first to arrive and Dura Max made a short stop before leaving to ride with T-3. By 8 am we had a solid A group and a solid B group as we headed out onto Latham and over to Lyon to head north. It seemed to me the A group might be going to Mountain center or maybe even Idyllwild but I didn’t know for sure. I would figure it out before long.

I don’t believe we made it to Fruitvale before Bulldozer, Bloodhound, Daredevil, Gambler and MacGyver rolled by and started to pull away. I was thinking about going with them but I didn’t know how many matches I had left after our Monday ride so discretion being the better part of valor I decided to be the engine that pulled the B group as far as they wanted to go. I took them down Lyon and then we made the jog over to Ramona to head east.

Once I got on Ramona I figured I could give the lead to someone else but nobody seemed all that interested in going any faster than my pulling speed so I just hunkered down and stayed in front almost all the way to State Street. We needed to make a short stop at Mickey Ds but I didn’t mind because by this time I was thinking the A group was headed to Mountain Center. I pulled again as we moved north on State towards the college.

As we closed in on Soboba I thought I could hold the whole B group together but it simply wasn’t going to work out once we got over the first roller. I fell back and followed Surgeon, Quicksilver and Huntress over the second roller. Highlander managed to tag up on us before we got to the driving range but we did separate a bit going up the last hill to the regroup point. As we left and headed for the bridge over to Ramona Digger sped past us and headed for the bridge. It didn’t work because Surgeon, Quicksilver and Huntress caught and passed him before the light. Our next stop would be after we turned on Cedar and headed for Florida I got a text from Shadow saying he was waiting at Cranston. We turned east and headed for Cranston and I believe Shadow joined the A group before we got there. Turns out they were headed for Idyllwild. Before we got out of the trees I fell off of the bike lane and into that little construction shoulder and flatted. I rejoined the group at Cranston and all of us other than Surgeon continued on to ride Strawberry Shortcake.

Highlander decided to give the climb a try and soon we were moving up the hill towards the big left hand grade at the 9 mile mark. And we all made it and regrouped to celebrate.

The ride back down to Carl’s was what some of us older riders call an E ticket. It comes from a time when Disneyland issued ticket books and all of the big fast rides took am E ticket. Tea cups and trolleys took an A or B ticket. Highlander and I got a jump on Huntress and pulled away at first. But I soon discovered I was running into a head wind. Huntress caught us about a mile before we got back to Cranston where we waited for Quicksilver and Digger and then rode together to Carl’s for a quick break. Once refreshed we headed for home and for a change kept the pace down. That made me feel a lot better because I was still running on a tire with a boot in it.

Highlander and Quicksilver did push it a bit once we past State street and were about half of a block in front of Huntress and I when Digger left at Palm. We all pulled in to Burger King and talked about how nice the ride was today before finally saying good bye and heading for our respective homes. A hot shower and lunch and I became a happy camper kicking back in the recliner looking for pin holes in my eye lids.