QUAIL VALLEY -- They're all 50 or above, adventurous but not reckless.

Time doesn't dull the appeal of dare and danger, but experience informs them to avoid the greatest hazards.

So, Menifee school Trustee Rita Peters and friends still joined a motorcycle crowd en route to Yuma, Ariz., this weekend, but they rode on trikes, not bikes. A trike, which has one tire in front and two parallel wheels in the back, is similar to the traditional motorcycle, but is designed for the PT Cruiser crowd.

"It's sort of like your Hell's Angels, but not quite," said Patricia Collins, Peters' friend and neighbor.

Not surprisingly, Peters and Collins own PT Cruisers, as well.

This isn't the first year that Peters and Collins, Quail Valley residents who also manage after-school center Project LIFT, have made the trip to Yuma. But it's the first year that Peters has taken her trike, instead of sitting in the comfy and spacious backseat of a friend's.

"I'm not riding behind anymore," said Peters, 56, grinning.

This time, her boyfriend, Chris Cresencio, was the passenger.

Friday, Peters and Collins, along with nine other friends -- including Collins' 77-year-old father-in-law, Leonard Collins -- left Quail Valley for Yuma. They took the "scenic route," Patricia Collins said, along Interstate 10 to Indio, before taking local highways to El Centro and then Yuma, which hugs the California border.

It promised to be a leisurely ride for the group.

The trike, unlike a traditional motorcycle, doesn't sway left and right; it's flat to the ground. Even when doing a wheelie, the trike plays it safe; the front, after being angled to the sky, gracefully returns to the blacktop without a hiccup or bounce.

"A lot of trike users are former Harley riders who can't ride two wheels anymore," said Collins, 64.

Peters' trike isn't tricked-out in the conventional sense. But it certainly isn't common: it reflects her personality, she said.

A sombrero is displayed prominently -- Peters frequently wears large, flamboyant hats -- and there are suggestive Betty Boop stickers pressed against the back of the trike. Covering an already plush driver's seat is a $200 burgundy sheepskin blanket from Australia. Along the trike's sides are forest-green flames, and the horn, when pressed, plays "La Cucaracha."

"All the kids in Quail Valley go, 'Give us the horn!'" Peters said. "They're all Mexicans in town, so they think it's the taco wagon."

Patricia Collins' trike -- her third -- is simpler. It's not as flashy and is less ornamental, but unlike Peters' trike, hers has a Harley Davidson front.

Collins' trike cost almost $9,000; Peters' is worth $14,500.

It's no accident that this group chose Yuma as a destination.

"Yuma is more of the old-schools, not the rebel yuppie bikers," Peters said. "Most of the yuppie riders go to Laughlin, (Nev.)."

But the older, wiser riders aren't exactly sages -- upon reaching the Arizona border each year, the local riders from Quail Valley and Perris immediately take off their helmets, Collins said.

In Yuma, they were scheduled to attend a motorcycle parade, and visit the historic Yuma prison.

"We'll stay at local fairgrounds, maybe visit Mexico, do what we usually do," Peters said.

Peters nearly didn't make it to Yuma.

Her mother, Vivian Fiskenold of Minnesota, recently suffered a brain aneurysm. Peters drove her PT Cruiser to and from Minnesota, arriving back in Southwest County earlier in the week.

While in Minnesota, Peters doubted she'd be back in time for the annual Yuma trip, and even upon her return, doubted she could overcome her grief.

"I just thought there's no way I'm going to Yuma," she said. "But I had been talking about it for a year: 'Finally, I'd be driving there.' So I'm glad I'm going."

While it's Peters' first road trip handling the wheel, this trip is Collins' 10th trike ride to Yuma.

Her first husband -- Leonard Collins' son is her second -- basically forbade trikes.

"He was a Harley man," Collins said. "But I'm not a Harley person. That's a whole cult of its own."

She paused, before adding: "Every trike is different, but every Harley is the same."

The uniqueness of each trike appeals to Peters, but she also is an admitted failed Harley rider.

"I went to a Harley Davidson school in San Bernardino," said Peters, who has arthritis in her legs. "But they kicked me out, gave me my money back. I didn't have any hand and foot coordination."

For both Collins and Peters, the trike has been liberating.

"The first time I got on it, I felt freedom," said Collins. "There was fear, but there was freedom. Then there was no stopping me."

Contact staff writer Brian Eckhouse at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2626, or beckhouse@californian.com.