By: C. Kent, aka (Superman) Today was supposed to be our second ease into the week Monday ride. I was concerned that we might we might get rained out Wednesday so I had to choose between a short ride with some short climbs or a longer ride with some sprint points. I went for the latter and picked Backwards Soboba. Now all I had to do was get over to Burger King and see who would show up and what kind of pace we would set. I got to the parking lot just before Digger and we were having coffee when Rocket pulled up. Bloodhound pulled in just before Highlander and to our surprise Surgeon came out even though it was overcast. Sasquatch arrived followed by Daredevil and Akira, (The Jackal) and lastly Tax Man. It was time to go and as we headed down Gilmore to Acacia I could tell this was not going to be a laid back day. We did pick up Mantis at Kirby. I didn’t even get a picture till we got to Cypress and stopped to change the batteries in my camera.

As we got out onto Sanderson Bloodhound started ramping it up and soon we were in a pretty good pace line all the way to Mustang. Before we knew it we were merging left and getting ready to turn onto Domenigoni. At first Bloodhound took off by himself and Daredevil had to pull the rest of us up to him. That pull however broke the group in half and as we turned onto State Street and headed for McSweeney we had three separate bunches. Somehow we all turned right and Tax Man turned left. We made it through the housing tract and headed north to try and catch Tax Man. I stopped on Stetson to call and make sure Tax Man was still in front of us and then had to chase the whole group all the way to Fairview. Rocket ran hard past Lake Street then checking his dilithium crystals decided to head back to the launch pad while I chased the rest of the group all the way to Fairview for the regroup before heading to the Fire station for a nature break.

Digger didn’t stop with us so we ended up having to chase him west towards Lake and Main. Before we got to Ramona Daredevil took over the pull and we quickly we through the light on Hemet Street and settled into a slowly accelerating pace towards Main. As we turned right at the light over the river bed e caught Digger and started down the road towards Soboba. Soon we turned left and were headed for the Golf Course and the run down Soboba to State Street. Here is where things turned into hectic fun.

As we came out of the trees Mantis took flight and started the run west. He got out about 70 yards in front of us and was pulling away before I pulled in front and started to give chase. The slight downhill allowed me to pick up speed quickly and managed to catch Mantis at the driving range. As we rolled by him Daredevil pulled by me and I fell onto his back wheel for the next mile or so. On my next turn to pull Jackal came up from behind us and tried to create a gap. It wasn’t about to work however because I saw it as an early relief to my pulling and followed him till he started to sputter a bit and moved back around with Daredevil in tow. Once we had a gap on both Jackal and Mantis Daredevil took over and extended our lead and took us all the way to state Street for another regroup. We took a few moments before heading south on State towards Ramona and along the way we found Bloodhound again, we lost him on Fairview. He stayed with us most of the way to Ramona.

We turned back east on Ramona and headed back towards Main to go have coffee at Carl’s. Bloodhound didn’t stay all that long and shortly after we rolled past the light on Main he broke off and headed for home. I noticed we had dropped Highlander on the hill and I stopped to pick him up. Daredevil came back to ride with us while Jackal and Surgeon continued on. We caught them at Cedar and took turns pulling all the way to Carl’s. We talked for a while before Daredevil headed for home while Highlander, Digger, Surgeon, Sasquatch, Jackal and I had coffee and took a break. Once we were ready we pulled out onto New Chicago and headed for home.

Jackal left us first followed by Digger leaving ride back t Surgeon, Highlander, Sasquatch and me to Burger King and the vehicles. After a few more moments of conversation I said my good byes and headed over to the bike shop to see about getting a set of Cool Stops. I then headed for home for a hot shower and to walk the dog before heading out to run some errands. Like I said before it pretty fast for a kick back Monday.