The legs were tired today. The tailwind helped compensate while biking north on the “New Caney – Tavola – Valley Ranch” route but the headwind showed how tired they were. The best I could get my average speed up to was 14.5 mph but that was short lived once I rode into the stiff south wind.
With the warm weather today’s attire was shorts and short sleeve University of Cincinnati jersey. The red and black goes great with the Canyon Endurace CF SLX color.
While I was brushing my teeth before getting ready to leave I thought about a different set of streets for my exit from Kingwood. I biked these before but not on this route. Wheels down at 11:09 am I set off to Elm Grove Village then to W. Lake Houston Parkway going north to Royal Brook Village. While I was on W. Lake Houston Parkway before getting Royal Brook I stopped and took these photos.
The bridge is old and rusty with noisy boards riding over it. As I was getting ready to leave after taking the bridge photo I looked down in the water and saw more turtles than I can remember seeing in one place. Click on the photos to see better. Most of them were more than 15″ from head to tail with a couple even larger.
With the turtles behind me I continued north on the trail along W. Lake Houston Parkway crossing Mills Branch Drive to enter Royal Brook Village. I took these photos at the bridge over a gully the trail crosses.
From there I rode north into Country Colony an older subdivision that has new construction again. I turned left and rode west to Ford Road. Waiting on traffic I turned left again headed to North Kingwood Estates and the streets to take back through Elm Grove Village, Sherwood Trails Village, and Woodridge Forest to get to I-69/US59 where the route resumed the usual direction.
Making my way through Tavola I saw the extra starting streets would probably add a couple of miles to the route by the time I finished. This would help me move closer to my mileage goal for May. On Roman Forest Blvd. I rode to the west with the wind helping. I dreaded the next left turn onto the I-69/US59 south bound service road because the tailwind would switch to a headwind. It did that but coming from my left side rather than a headwind the pedaling wasn’t quite as tough as I expected. But I still slowed from my pace getting to Tavola. I got a short reprieve from the wind biking west on Valley Ranch Parkway behind the stores but when that turned back to the south the wind caught me again. Add a couple of inclines and the legs power went down as I watched the watts go up but the speed go down.
Briar Tree and Oakhurst were not much different except where streets switched directions briefly and the wind helped or hurt. Exiting Oakhurst I rumbled across the paver bricks in the road over a drainage ditch bridge the developers thought would look nice. They are not quite as bad as the pavers in the French road race but the wheels on the Canyon Endurace CF SLX jumped around producing a rough ride. And for added measure there is another shorter section about 200 feet south of the bridge. They look great and don’t cause cars a problem but bicycles is another issue. Sometimes I ride on the sidewalk/trail to the left of the road to avoid these bricks.
My teeth, feet, and and hands calmed down after the bricks and I biked on through Kingwood Place, back to I-69/US59 and onto Kings Manor before entering Kingwood for the last 4 miles to the finish. It went well with the wind getting blocked some with houses and trees. I rolled to the finish at 1:53 pm.
More good biking weather on Friday.
SportTracks Bike Ride Summary
