When I ride the same route 3 times in a week searching for variation takes some effort. I found a little variation today on my “Atascocita – Walden – Huffman” route by adding a loop in Kingwood Greens, the Atascocita Hike & Bike Trail, and riding on Rebawood Drive on the way back to Kingwood. That put the distance at 35.23 miles, slightly above the average for the 18 other rides in 2022. No changes in the roads or construction areas I rode through. The sliver of pavement between the barriers riding west on FM 1960 approaching Atascocita Shores Drive is a way to stay out of the traffic but today rather than waiting for a left turn there was a long opening in the westbound traffic allowing me to move over to make the right turn onto Atascocita Shores and avoid the stop light. A man working on some landscape on the Atascocita Hike & Bike Trail saw me coming and held his German Shepherd dog as I rode by with the dog lunging after me but restrained. I think another German Shepherd tried to chase me earlier in the ride but his leash stopped him. I like leashes.
I saw three other cyclists: two on FM 1960 riding west as I made the turn onto Fairlake Lane and the other on Rebawood just after turning off Atascocita Shores. I wonder if the two on FM 1960 stopped at the donuts shop at E. Lake Houston Parkway like have seen others do in the past.
Getting started before 9 AM by 1 minute was a big effort though I thought I would do better than that. I finished at 11:50 AM with the temperature at 95 heading toward a possible 100. Glad I missed that. Yesterday I registered for the HH100 so I might see 100 degrees on August 27th in Wichita Falls. I’m waiting on my hotel reservation to come through.
This wasn’t a fast ride and it took most of the ride to get my average speed to 13 mph or higher. As I rode west over Lake Houston I changed to 35×15 gears because the headwind was so strong. I didn’t know how strong until I finished at looked at the weather, 20 mph gusts. No wonder my legs had trouble pushing the 35×13 gears on my Cervelo Caledonia. Link to AXS.SRAM ride report. I did ride the 35×13 gears for a total of 1:30:10 out of the total moving time of 2:45:56.
Weather: start 86 (humidity 78%, dew point 78), a few clouds, wind S 4 mph; 95 (humidity 55%, dew point 76), mostly cloudy, wind SW 9 mph gusts 20 mph. I don’t remember reading about the wind being that strong in today’s forecast. Not that it would have altered my ride.
