Stripes sells Eco85
After riding two days in a row to Huffman I went north on today’s ride. With the Grand Parkway construction on US59 at the old Community Drive overpass I elected to ride the reverse of a ride I used to do before the construction. Leaving Kingwood I went west to Lone Star College before going north through Oakhurst. From Oakhurst I rode Old Sorters Road to Sorters Road and then to FM1314. Until I turned west onto FM13154 I fought the wind especially when I got in open spots with nothing to break the wind. The front moved through during the night leaving some rain and wind. I started the ride at 1:29 under a bright blue sky, 72 degrees and a NNE 17 mph wind with 25 mph gusts.
Because of the wind I wore a long sleeve jersey and a windbreaker jacket above bike shorts. The sun kept me warm and comfortable without over heating too much. This particular jacket has plenty of vents and fits snugly so not much flaps in the wind. Once I reached Cumberland Crossing I turned back to Porter on FM1314 with a nice tailwind. I zipped over the 3+ miles to the Stripes station where I took a break eating a Kashi trail mix bar and two Kashi cookies washing them down with a Diet Pepsi. (Lots of product names)
Stripes sells Eco85 fuel so while I was there I checked the price. We are getting a new Jeep Grand Cherokee which can use E85. There was a man fueling a Nissan sporty type car with E85 and I asked him what kind of mileage he got. He said 20 mpg is typical. I asked if he used unleaded regular and he said the last time was 3 months ago. E85 was priced $3.209 versus regular at $3.359. If use a Stripes cash card the prices are $3.059 and $3.329, respectively. I think E85 fuel efficiency is not as high as regular so that accounts for some of the price difference. I wonder if low demand keeps the price down as well.
I biked 31.34 miles on today’s route averaging 15.6 mph. I got back home at 4:10. The sky was still a nice blue with a few thin clouds, 79.9 degrees and the wind still kicking it up at 10 form the north with 24 mph gusts. Mileage standings after today’s ride: 165.71 miles this week; 126.4 miles for April, 1386 miles year to date. With 4 riding days so far in April I am making good progress to reach my 778 mile goal; 652 miles to go.
I have been thinking about riding the Katy Ram Challenge tomorrow (Saturday) but the weather looks iffy. Rain could be moving in before I would finish. I may get up early to check the weather. If the weatherman is wrong then I can still give it a run to Katy.
Links to Garmin Connect and RideWithGPS maps and metrics.
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