The Thanksgiving Day Ride...

Well, I am glad to have made the effort of getting out on the Turkey Day ride this morning. It would have been easy to sleep in, as the rest of the household did; instead I was greeted by a good sized group of Psycho-lists, Cycling Connection riders, and plenty of others as well, who had heard of the ride from one place or another. 

the gathering (i just now noticed you waving Trish, hey)

Over thirty (at one point I heard the number 34) of us rolled out under cloudy skies, but were never really threatened with rain, so the conditions were pretty much perfect for riding. We followed a route which was a kind of tour of three campuses - Mt. San Antonio College, Cal Poly Pomona, and then back through the Claremont Colleges. It is a nice route with plenty of hills for me to stretch my legs and attempt to put up a challenge for the KOM. I did respectably, never less than 4th on any of the climbs. Sorry, but if someone takes off on a climb I've got to go after them, and if no one takes that initiative, then I've got to take up that role of instigator. But then this was a Thanksgiving social ride, so I am sure there were plenty of riders simply taking it easy, and other than those hills, that is exactly what we did. 

setting the pace along Barranca through Covina

the long straight of Barranca, one place i could get the whole group.

the rider in front was on a nice vintage Peugeot

I got to see some folks I have ridden with recently, others I haven't seen in a while, and yet others I rode with for the first time. I saw Mike, aka Pain Freak, who I had previously only seen on an mtb, although I knew he was a long time roadie too. Shout out to Erik here, a reader of this blog, who is one of those I met for the first time today - sorry not to see you at the end and wish you a good Thanksgiving, I guess the group got split at that last light, and then I turned off for home while heading up Mills. Fun stuff. Bring on the turkey, or ham, sweet potatoes would be good too, and some pie afterward.