Biking with New Sensors to May Community Center
Chamber of Commerce weather is how today was described by Eric Berger, a local meteorologist. I agreed so much I went for at 42.31 mile bike ride on my “May Park Community Center – Huffman” route. The blue sky, 86 degrees and a NNW 9 mph wind (18 mph gusts though) called and I answered. At least one other bicyclist heard the call to. I saw him on Old Atascocita Road east of FM2100 as I approached FM2100 from the west. I turned left before he got to me so I didn’t have the opportunity to say hi or wave.
To be sure I would ride at least 40 miles I added a couple of side streets to the usual route. These were in Walden, Pinehurst in Atascocita and Atascocita Shores on the way home.
Before the ride I decided to install new speed and cadence sensors for the Edge 520. With the recent problems I experienced I thought maybe updating the sensors might help. The sensors installed quickly and I paired them with the 520 before I got ready to ride in case there were any problems. It went well. I moved through the settings on the 520 and found a page that listed the “components” the 520 had connected with. Opening each component there was fields to show the condition of the battery, the id number and other things. I had not seen this screen before.
Being cautious I decided to run the Ride With GPS app in case there was a problem. There was one phone disconnect message but it took several minutes before I got the phone connected message. In the meantime the 520 still recorded the ride data so nothing lost. The only other message was the wheel size calibration one from the new speed/distance sensor. I install that sensor on the front hub because the rear hub was not wide enough to allow it to sit on the hub body. The cadence sensor comes with 3 rubber bands to hold it to the crank arm but the longest one was too short and I used a black zip tie. If I can figure out the id number of the G10 sensors I took off I will remove them from the component list on the 520.
I decided to stop at the Dollar General store on FM2100 in Huffman to get chips. After paying for the chips and walking outside the couple that was in front of me in the checkout line called to me from their Jeep Grand Cherokee after they backed out of the parking spot. The lady asked how old I was. I asked her how old did she think I was but she didn’t guess. I told her 69 and she said how great I looked. She repeated this several times during our conversation. Talk about helping my ego!! The man asked how far I usually ride and I replied this week 40 miles. He asked where I ride and I told him from Kingwood and then waved my arm to show the direction for today. He asked if I knew some other bicyclists that meet at the Starbucks by Randalls in Kingwood and I said no. He said one of them is an airline pilot but I did not know him. The lady again said how great I looked and told me to keep riding and then they said goodbye.
From there I rode south on FM2100 to the Huffman Chevron to rest, eat the chips and snacks and drink water. I was going to go inside to fill my water bottle but there was a woman at the soft drink fountain machine. I had unscrewed the cap on the bottle. I got a Greensheet newspaper to sit on and went back out and sat down in the shade under the pump canopy. I put the bottle to my mouth to drink and a big gush of water came out from the loose lid soaking my leg. Thankfully it was cool and not ice cold. I tightened the lid and used the paper towels to dry off some and ate. This was 29.69 miles into the ride.
I stayed at the Chevron for about 30 minutes. This was good time because it allowed the school traffic to abate before I got to them later. The weather screenshots while I was in Huffman.
I left home at 12:21, a little later because I helped my wife by cutting some chipboard for a crafting project she was going to work on while I was gone. While I was gone I was expecting UPS to deliver a new Acer Chromebook 14. I kidded my wife that she should sit on the front porch, do her crafting there and wait for the UPS driver to deliver the box. I told her the weather was so good she should be outside enjoying it. She said that was not what she planned to do and we laughed. The UPS driver actually came after I was back home at 3:56. I will use the Chromebook to watch the Giro d’ Italia on the internet starting tomorrow.
Today was another new jersey day. I wore a short sleeve Garneau jersey that color coordinated with my Stradalli RP-14 bike.
The great weather is in the forecast for a couple of more days. I plan on taking advantage of and ride. The 3 rides this week have all been over 40 miles long. My typical ride is 32 to 35 miles long.
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