By: C. Kent, aka (Superman) It was another Friday and I still had something left for a ride even if I was a bit sore from Bautista on Wednesday. I put together a simple ride and even thought about riding my Peugeot except when I got up it was windy. So I got out the Tarmac and headed for the Bike Shop looking forward to seeing old friends and getting in a few miles before lunch. Digger was there when I arrived and my old friend Back draft showed up as did Earth Dog and Bruin. Barracuda arrived making our group six strong as we headed down Lyon towards Johnston.

I was not intending to pull all that far but the first part of the ride had been changed slightly to avoid the bad part of Lyon after crossing Stetson and heading to Thornton. So I took us to Johnston and over to Gilbert before heading south towards Stetson. We caught the light and had to wait for quite a while allowing me a chance to catch my breath a bit and assess how much energy it was going to take to spend the first half of this ride fighting the wind. Once we got to Thornton and turned east things weren’t so bad but when I turned south the wind hit me right in the face and made riding towards Domenigoni a lot harder than I had expected.

Once we started down the slope Earth Dog rolled by me and pulled away. Before long everyone rolled by and I was on the back following just about everyone. I finally got a pace going and pulled by Digger and tried to close on the rest of the group. We picked up Prosecutor and he took off of the front with Bruin and Earth Dog leaving Barracuda and Back Draft to soft pedal till I caught their wheel. Back Draft pulled ahead with Earth Dog and Barracuda slowly got me up to speed as we crossed Sanderson and headed for the rise and Warren. Slowly Barracuda got me up to the pack and over the dry wash where Prosecutor was waiting for us. I stayed with the group till Barracuda got me to Winchester where I decided we needed to stop and take one of my pills. We waited at the trees till everyone was regrouped. Digger decided not to do the Briggs and Garbani loop and told us he would wait at the gas station on Menifee so we took off and headed for the saddle. Barracuda, Prosecutor and Back Draft got to the top first and we dropped down the back side and headed towards Laguna Vista with me pulling.

Bruin and Earth Dog took us around the corner onto Briggs and we fell in line behind them all the way to Holland. I got behind Back Draft and stayed close to Earth Dog and Bruin till we got to the hill and up onto Garbani to head west. Knowing we only had to make it to Antelope and the fighting a head wind would stop I put in the effort to stay with Earth Dog and Bruin as they led the way. We turned onto Antelope and Earth Dog took off towards the stop light at the top of the hill with Bruin chasing. I caught Bruin at the light and chased down Earth Dog by the time we got back to Holland. We then rode together all the way to Newport and headed back to Menifee and the Gas station where Digger was supposed to be waiting, he wasn’t. We didn’t stay long before we headed north on Menifee towards Simpson to head for home.

We all made the turn and drop onto Simpson together and quickly crossed Lindenburger heading for Winchester. Bruin pulled most of the way to Leon and then turned north again towards the dump road. The wind was mostly out of the south and north was the best way to go. We got to the dump road and headed east but the wind wasn’t much help as we headed for Winchester and the turn north. Once on Winchester we were once again riding with the wind on our back and quickly made it to Stowe and headed east towards California. The run north on California was rather quick and we had to chase Bruin all the way to Warren. When we got back on the way I led us to Cawston and we turned onto Industrial to head back to Sanderson.

We got back to the light on Sanderson and Prosecutor left us the head back to his side of town. Back Draft took us to Lowes and I took us out onto Acacia to head back east towards Kirby. We managed to make the light at Kirby green and I stayed in front till we got to Raymond and made the turn to the back side of the Bike Shop parking lot. We broke up there and headed for home. I had a quick lunch and took the dog for a walk to finish off the day. Not bad for a Friday.