By: C. Kent, aka (Superman) The ride Monday encouraged me because I was able to draft Earth Dog all the way home on Ramona and hold a cadence of about 100 rpm from Lakeview to Warren. But my legs were pretty tired so I wanted something flatter for Wednesday. I tossed out a 38 mile west to east ride and started looking forward to an easier day. I got up and headed for the parking lot on a much nicer day than we had had in weeks. I got to Burger King to find Dragon Slayer and Minotaur already there. They were followed by ME-109 and Earth Dog. Highlander drove up and to my surprise so did Huntress. The last to arrive was Bugler and we were ready to go.

The ride out onto Gilmore was uneventful and my legs seemed to have recovered from Monday quite well. We all made the turn west on Acacia together and stopped at the light on Kirby. Once the light changed we turned south and headed to Cypress to continue our movement west. We were still in a talkative mood as we made our way to Johnston. Highlander led us over Sanderson and through the industrial center to Cawston. Dragon Slayer, Highlander and Earth Dog led us towards Warren until ME-109 rolled by us and started to fade into the distance. Dragon slayer got in front and started to pull us to California and an ever increasing pace that much to my surprise I felt comfortable with. I lost a place as we turned south on California and fell into forth as we made another turn onto Stowe and the run west towards Winchester. We were rolling along about 23 or 24 mph as we past the last house on the left and I was surprised my Garmin hadn’t warned me that I was getting close to zone 5. I reached up only to discover I had forgotten my chest strap so the heart rate wasn’t ever going to register one 5 today. I fell out of line and drafted Earth Dog to the parking lot at Winchester farms.

As we pulled back on Winchester Highlander started our pull till Minotaur took over and set the pace to the Dump road. We rolled by Chris’s and then Simpson and finally got caught at the light on Domenigoni. Once we got turned east ME-109 once again took off and Dragon Slayer once again took over and got us rolling after him. I fell back and for a while Huntress rode with me before she pulled up to the lead group leaving me with Earth Dog. We had to stop again when Minotaur flatted and I rested while the tire was changed. Once the tire was fixed but before he remounted it on his bike Huntress and I left for Warren and managed to get there before we were caught by the rest of the group. With the exception of a long gone ME-109 we all made the turn on State Street together and headed for Chambers. Bugler took us onto Chambers and over to Buena Vista before we turned on Thornton and took a snack break at the golf course. After downing an energy bar we were off again and headed for Santa Fe. I managed to get us headed east on Stetson and Dragon Slayer took over for me after the first block. I hooked onto his back wheel and stayed there till Highlander decided to leave us at Columbia due to time restraints. Once he left we strung out a bit and made our way past the High School and onto Fairview before heading north towards Florida. I took advantage of a long draft to launch a small sprint at the bridge only to be caught by Dragon Slayer. I was feeling better but not ready for a full on sprint to Florida. I ended up being one of the last ones to get to Cranston where we regrouped before heading back west towards Fairview. Minotaur was pulling as we got into the trees and I was tagged on behind Earth Dog and Bugler till I noticed Dragon Slayer and Huntress were late leaving Cranston so I soft peddled till the joined me and we started to give chase to the fleeing Minotaur group. We were closing till we got to the gas station where we pushed just a little too hard and broke our small group. Once we were reorganized we made our way to Fairview and got stopped by the light. Huntress pulled us to Carl’s where we took a very short break before heading back to Burger King and home. I got back with a much better average speed than I have been making for the last few weeks and my legs still felt better than they did last week on much shorter rides.