By: C. Kent, aka (Superman) It is always a challenge to put a ride together for Friday. Sometimes it seems like an esy short ride would be the best and other times there is still enough energy left to put ourselves up to a bit of a harder workout. I haven’t done a lot of climbing since getting out of the hospital but today seemed like a good day to see how tired legs would react to a harder ride. I got to the bike shop with only Digger, Dragon Slayer and Minotaur were there. Try Guy Ben showed up followed by Earth Dog and ME-109. Tax Man drove up just before Huntress and Anaconda. Once Ferret showed up we were ready to leave and I took us out onto Lyon and pointed us towards Acacia. It was hard to hold back as we headed west towards Kirby and the turn south towards Cypress.

I was thinking that it would be best if I didn’t pull at all today so that I could save all of my energy for hospital hill and Goetz. However things weren’t working out they way I had planned and I led us to Cypress and west towards Johnston. It was an easy if a bit quicker than normal cruise to Johnston with Ben and I up front and taking the corner to Sanderson and caught the light. Ben and I led the way over Sanderson and onto Tanya and curved around to Industrial trying to make our way to Cawston.

Somehow I pulled onto Stetson first and headed for Warren. The problem with leading the group was I had to pick up the pace and that was not my intention this early in the ride. Still I did my best and got us to Warren before dropping off and heading back to pick up Tax Man and Digger as the rest of the group headed for California. As I rode with Tax Man I discovered that he had planned on making a shorter ride today and would be leaving us as we got ready to climb Hospital Hill on the back side. We cruised just ahead of Digger to California ourselves and made our way to Stowe to meet the rest of the group at Winchester Farms for a regroup.

The plan changed a bit as we got ready to head south on Winchester. We were going to make our way to the dump road and head all the way to Briggs and south to McCall rather than turning on Leon and going to Simpson and up to Menifee before cutting over to McCall. I took us out onto Winchester and led the way to the Dump road before starting west towards Briggs. We all made it to McCall and headed west again till we got to the light at Menifee and lost Tax Man and Digger. The two Jack Rabbits, ME-109 and Ferret took off and attacked the hill followed by Dragon Slayer and Minotaur. I followed those two and had Huntress, Anaconda and Earth Dog chasing me. We made it over the hill and dropped down to the gas station on Bradley for another regroup. We left the gas station and headed north on Bradley to make the turn and turn to connect with Murrieta and head north once more. Once we got to Ethanic we headed west and made our way to Goetz and turned south to climb the backside and head over the top and back down to Normandy. About halfway down the front side I can upon some of the group removing small hay bales from the road and then made my way to Normandy and east to La Ladera. We turned north to the Small Park and regroup again.

We were back on the road soon and headed north to Honey run to work our way back to McCall and head east. Me-109 and Ferret took off again as we got to the front side on Hospital and we lost them all together by the time we crossed Heritage and headed back the way we had come to get to Briggs and then the dump road. We had a pretty good tail wind most of the way back to Winchester before turning north and heading to Stowe. Once we were headed east we had a tail wind again and it stayed with us almost to California. Once we turned north on California my right leg developed a cramp and I had to down shift and easy spin all the way to Stetson with Ben Pulling me all the way.

Dragon Slayer came back to get me and between him and Ben they got me back to Warren where I stopped to take some electrolytes and some Rolaids before Dragon Slayer pulled us to Cawston and Industrial for the ride back to the Bike Shop. We decided to ride back the way we had come on Cypress and Kirby so that the houses could block the wind for us till we got back to Acacia. Dragon Slayer got us back to the Bike shop and we said good bye before heading for home and in my case a hot lunch. The climbs worked well for today. I home next week is even better.