By: C. Kent, aka (Superman) After the beginning of the week I wondered if I should have started building an Ark rather than a bike. But by Thursday the sky started to clear and it looked good for a ride for Friday. I needed some saddle time to try and get ready for TDPS so I put together a easy but longer ride than I had been able to do to date and headed for Burger King to see if anyone else was up for a ride. I ended up with Digger and Earth Dog by 9am so we hit the road heading south towards Acacia and turned towards Kirby. I figured I could take it a little easier with Digger and Earth Dog and as we moved south on Kirby to Cypress I was conserving my energy to make the whole ride. We made our way to Johnston and crossed the light at Sanderson to work our way over to Cawston and then headed West on Stetson.

As we crossed Warren we noticed Ferret had joined us and we talked as we cruised to California. Ferret was the strongest of the group so he took us to Stowe. He was still leading as he took us all the way to Winchester and a short stop at the Winchester Farms parking lot.

I don’t seem to do real well in the cold and it was cold this morning. I had to take on fuel this morning because I was burning energy at a pretty good rate. Digger was getting cold so he took off south on Winchester and we had to chase his all the way down to the dump road. I was hanging on pretty well as we got to the Wild West Arena, after navigating some mud and water, and headed for Leon. I stayed with the group up the rise but decided I was burning energy far too quickly so I fell back and digger stayed with me. We followed Ferret and Earth Dog all the way to Briggs rather than turn on Leon because Earth Dog had warned us that Menifee was flooded or covered with mud from Florida all the way to Mapes. We didn’t get back together as a group till we got to the High School and crossed Florida. I tried to stay close to Ferret as I could and we got to Mapes fairly quickly where I stopped to remove my jacket. Earth Dog took off on us and Ferret joked about giving him a head start so we could chase him down. I simply don’t seem to have the stamina yet to mount much of a chase so I just smiled as we headed for Menifee. Ferret, Digger and I turned onto Mapes together and Digger led us to the top of the grade where Ferret started to ramp it up as if he indeed wanted to chase down Earth Dog. It was here I made a rather foolish move and attempted to draft him north on Menifee. He got us up to 26 or 27 mph and I was burning matches I simply didn’t have to burn. We did catch Earth Dog at the stop sign and we led him to Nuevo and then up to Lakeview before waiting for Digger at the corner.

Once we were back on our way Ferret had us moving sharply towards the Expressway and the turn east. Digger and I chased as best as we could till we got to the stop sign by the post office and I could tell my batteries were draining. I backed off as Ferret took Earth Dog up to the Valero Station and turned on the frontage road. Digger and I went all the way to the Expressway and headed east. We passed them as the were waiting at the store at the light and they started to give chase. I simply couldn’t pull at anything over 19 mph and we were caught by the time we had made our way to the Nutrilife warehouse and Ferret passed us and pulled away with Earth Dog in tow. Digger and I found Earth Dog waiting for us at Warren where Ferret had left him when he headed for home. Earth dog and I took turns pulling back south to Cottonwood and then headed est to Sanderson. By this point I was running on low power and had to draft Earth dog most of the way to Devonshire. Digger left us at and headed for home before we got to Devonshire and I followed Earth Dog back to the driveway at Burger King before heading for home myself. I was tired, almost drained in fact, and my legs were sore but I had put in a mile more than my longest ride to date. I have a long way to go but if I take my time I am sure I will get back into shape my this summer.