By: C. Kent, aka (Superman) It looked like another great day for ride as I headed for the Bike shop this morning, a little cooler than Wednesday but not cold enough to bother me much. I had planned the ride for Huntress and Tax Man and to be honest I regretted not making it a bit shorter for me. Today seemed like a bit of a setback physically because I started out tired and a bit sore and it wasn’t working out as I headed for Lyon. I got to the shop to see Digger sitting at the counter and coffee brewing. I went over to get a cup about the same time as Anaconda arrived. She was followed by Earth Dog and ME-109. I then discovered Huntress wasn’t going to join us so I could have made the ride even flatter. Minotaur and Bulldozer joined us and it was 9am so we got ready to leave. Tax Man wasn’t with us either so I really regretted not making the ride shorter. I mentioned to Bulldozer that I might modify the route once we got to Nuevo and he agreed it might be a good idea. We pulled out of the parking lot and headed down to Acacia and over to Kirby before heading south.

As soon as we got to Cypress I knew I was in trouble because I fell behind Bulldozer, Minotaur, ME-109 and Anaconda. Earth Dog dropped back to pull me up to them and casually said we would have our work cut out catching them and he proceeded to pull us up to Johnston and Sanderson. The problem intensified when we got caught at the light and they didn’t. Once we got a chance to turn onto Sanderson we were at least a block behind the other four and they were pulling away. As we rounded the corner onto Domenigoni we could just see the other four heading over the rise heading for Warren. I was impressed that Earth Dog chased as hard as he did and it looked like we might close at Warren but we fell back again at the dry wash and there was no closing after that. I tried to take a turn at the front and pull to give Earth Dog a break but I didn’t last that long and shortly after Winchester Earth Dog got back in front. I had just enough to pull at the saddle and take us to the gas station on Menifee for a regroup.

We took a short break before heading back out onto Menifee and headed north. We all crossed over Simpson together and dropped down towards McCall. This time ME-109, Bulldozer and Minotaur took off for Florida and we watched them pull away. We crossed Florida about 3 minutes behind them and Earth Dog pulled us past Mapes and over the rise to the downhill heading towards Central. As we got to Nuevo I told Earth Dog to turn right and head for Lakeview. Bulldozer had remember that I had said I might shorten the ride so he soft pedaled his group to Lakeview and headed north. We finally got on their back wheel and followed them past 11th street and I ran up against the rev limiter and simply couldn’t hold on after 9th street. We turned onto the frontage road and regrouped at the little store on Hansen. As we got ready to leave Bulldozer’s group said they had to get back for an appointment so they headed east on Ramona and we followed. We had been running into the wind all the way down Lakeview and to my surprise we hit the wind again as we headed east. Earth Dog did the lion’s share of the pulling back to Bridge and then took us to Warren where we turned south. To my surprise we still had a head wind as it seemed the wind had turned around just for us. Anaconda pulled us to Cottonwood and we headed east again to get to Sanderson. Earth Dog ran us south on Sanderson all the way back to Devonshire before we headed east again to work our way back towards Lyon.

I did take another turn and pulled us from Kirby to Lyon before turning south and getting us back to the parking lot and the Bike shop. The three of us took a short break before heading for our respective homes and in my case a well needed rest. To me it felt like the whole ride was done with a dead spark plug in one cylinder on a car. I hope t do better next week and guess my recovery will take a lot longer than I had thought.