By: C. Kent, aka (Superman) Sure it was cold this morning and sure I have a few people out sick but that was no reason to stay home. It was a great looking day and hardly any wind or predicted wind so even if I ended up being the only rider today I was looking forward to putting in a good 40 miles today. I knew Quicksilver was sick and that Digger was on Jury Duty but didn’t know Highlander was sick or some of the other riders had a CAS ride so I wasn’t really surprised when I got to Burger King first. But by 9am I was joined by Dragon Slayer, Bloodhound, Huntress and a new rider Rob. We headed out onto Latham and north on Lyon to head for Ramona.

If truth be told Bloodhound wasn’t supposed to ride today. At least his doctor didn’t think he was up to riding but he simply couldn’t stay home. We were going to learn how hard it was going to be to keep him at a more reasonable pace for the whole ride. With just the five of us the move to Ramona Boulevard was a quick and easy one. We made it to Ramona Boulevard and headed west when I got a text saying Tate was on his way and had missed us by a few moments. He then had to ride a more or less reverse course in hopes of meeting up before we had goon too far. We worked on keeping a steady pace and had Huntress practice spinning all the way to Bridge and then to Gilman. I stopped us on the corner while I had my morning snack and we headed as a group towards Sanderson. We picked up Tate before we made it back to Sanderson. He turned around and joined our pace line and we all made it to Sanderson and south towards Ramona together.

The whole group seemed rather well matched and we headed east on the Boulevard back towards Lyon. As cold as it was it still seemed almost effortless as we took turns pulling past Lyon and then set our sights on State Street. That too didn’t take long and soon we were sitting at the light on State and Ramona Boulevard.

We headed north towards Soboba and the run towards the Golf Course. Rob, Bloodhound and Tate split into one group and Dragon Slayer, Huntress and I made up another. While the first three took off Dragon Slayer and I worked with Huntress on taking the rollers smoothly and having something left for the last climb. She managed a pretty smooth run and we met up with the other three before heading for the river crossing sprint. We decided to extend the ride to Cranston Station but Huntress had to leave us at Ramona and Lake to meet her daughter for some Christmas Shopping. The rest of us made it to Cedar and then out onto Florida to make our way to Cranston. I made it to Cranston first but that was only because I drafted two Motorcycles like the commercial for Mark Cavendish and sprinted around them at the driveway for a victory.

Ok maybe that wasn’t the whole truth but it sounded good and I would have loved to have pulled it off. But we did meet two motorcycle riders at Cranston and spent some time talking to them before heading back to Carl’s for coffee and conversation. We decided to do a practice pace line all the way back to Ramona and the light before turning the last 200 yards into a sprint and a stop for coffee. Except Bloodhound who had to go home. Once we were all rested we headed up to Lincoln and west towards home. Tate left us after we got back to Devonshire and Yale.

I stayed with Dragon Slayer and Rob as we crossed one street after another and finally caught the light at San Jacinto. We made it to Santa Fe and I took us back down to Latham. We rode by the police Station and the Library and finally caught the Light at State. We were together till we got to Palm and I left for home leaving Dragon Slayer and Rob to get back to Burger king by themselves.

As I pointed myself south back to Florida I kept thinking how lucky we were to live where we do. I often talk to people on the Bicycling Forums that live back east who talk about mounting studded tires to ride in the snow and ice and realized than more than likely I wouldn’t be riding if I needed studded tires.