By: C. Kent, aka (Superman) I wasn’t quite sure about today’s ride. Some had requested a ride to Idyllwild and I knew full well I wasn’t up to that much of a climb. But I could post a ride to Mountain Center and that would give people the option of doing the whole ride or any part of it they wanted. So I posted the ride and headed for the Bike Shop not knowing if anyone would be joining me. To my surprise we had a pretty good sized group and even Digger was there to do a short ride of his own. We were soon joined by Earth Dog and much to my surprise Ranger came down to join us. Anaconda arrived and informed us that Chance and his brother would be with us as would a friend of hers. Hacker was with us as was Tax Man and Huntress was on her way. Karl decided to join us as well. Not a bad group for a Wednesday and a climbing ride. I also thought that Papillion would join us before we got to Cranston Station. As close to 9 am as I could I led us out of the parking lot and north on Lyon.

I decided to lead us north with the intention of keeping the pace easy so I could sae as much energy as I could. This was going to be the biggest climbing ride I had tried since last October when I had surgery. My stamina has suffered the most I think and my longest ride to date was Monday. So I wasn’t sure how much legs I was going to have for this ride. I knew I would have to ask someone else to take everyone to Idyllwild because I also knew it was going to be all I could do to make it to Strawberry Creek. I did manage to lead everyone to Ramona and headed east.

Huntress pulled up to take over for me by the time we got back to State Street and I decided that we should skip Soboba and just stay on Ramona all the way to Cedar before heading up the hill. As we got close to Cedar I asked Chance to regroup everyone at Cranston and I fell back in the group and geared down to save as much energy as I could. My goal was just to gear down and make a steady pull up the hill. Pushing was out of the question because I simply didn’t have the stamina for a long push. I rounded the turn onto Florida with Ranger and he pulled me up to Tax Man before heading off towards Cranston. By the time we regrouped at Cranston I saw Papillion had indeed joined us and felt better about sending the group off to Idyllwild without me. So I had a strong leadership leading the climb and I knew I would be joined by Tax Man and Earth Dog on my climb so I felt good. I followed Chance to the Truck Trail where I dropped into the small ring and watched the other roll by me. Huntress rolled by and gave me a little look telling me she was overjoyed and being able to pull away from me with ease. I knew this day would come I just didn’t know how it would get here. Still I had nothing by admiration as I watched he pull away.

Now it came down to a grind for me. Tax Man was still with me and I could see earth Dog and Ranger in front of me. I thought Tax Man was going to turn around at the Truck Trail but he held on for another mile or two. About two miles from Strawberry we pulled up next to Earth Dog and took a short break were Tax Man decided to head for home. I thought Earth Dog was going home as well but he decided to stay with me and head to Strawberry with me. We headed up the hill and soon crossed over Strawberry and I knew we were close. In fact we were too close to give up now and we pushed through for another mile before I could point out where the turnout was. Earth Dog pulled around me and got to the turnout first and I joined him a few bikes behind. I felt I had reached the turnout just in time because I don’t think I had another half of a mile worth of climbing in my legs.

I was sort of looking forward to the downhill run and as soon as we caught our breath we headed back down towards Val Vista. I managed to get in the drops for a while and managed to pull away from Earth Dog because the wind was right in our face as we descended. I never got much over 36 even in a full tuck but I was lower than Earth Dog so I did get away. It stayed that way till we got back to the Truck Trail where I was joined by earth dog and we rode together past Cranston towards Fairview. Earth Dog did most of the pulling to Fairview and I attempted to pull as we headed towards New Chicago. But the wind just hammered me and Earth Dog pulled me to the Carl’s driveway. I stopped and got a cup of coffee and texted some of the group to see where they were. Once I was sure they made it I finished my coffee and headed for home, lunch and a hot shower. I made my goal of climbing to Strawberry and hope to get better or maybe close to as fit as I was last year. Only God knows.