If it is possible to wear water today’s bike ride was one of those times. It all began at 8:01 AM, a little later than I wanted but still early for me. Today’s bike was my Cervelo Caledonia and the route was “Atascocita – Huffman – Walden”. Humidity was 99% from yesterday’s much needed rain and early in the day before the sun dried the air out some. I hoped to see some other cyclists as I rode and there were a few out but no groups. By the time I finished at 10:32 AM my jersey was soaked, sweat was running from my gloves, arm sleeves were wet, and when I stopped for a traffic light it felt like a wet towel was draped over me.
Before the ride I needed 16 miles to reach 200 for the week and today’s 32.12 miles put me over the mark by 16. I’m closing in on my 800 mile goal for July with 762.77 miles with today’s ride. Today was a little shorter distance than the last few rides because I changed the first mile of the ride to compensate for starting after 8 AM. Looking at the list of times I rode this route this year all but one has been on the same bike. The road construction on FM 1960 hasn’t altered the route enough to make a difference since I can get through the area without being exposed to dangerous traffic.
I haven’t taken a day off from riding since June 13th and I’m wondering if my legs need rest. Fortunately the wind wasn’t above 10 mph today and I was able to use the 35×13 gears for 1:29:34 out of the total moving time of 2:25:20. A couple of times I should’ve shifted to an easier gear but didn’t which would’ve helped some. I did change the RD 21 times. It took around half the ride to get my overall average speed to 13 mph but this route doesn’t have long stretches of continuous riding until I get onto FM 1960. The starts and stops make it difficult to keep my speed high enough to improve the average speed until then. Link to AXS.SRAM.com ride report.
Ride weather overview: start 76 (humidity 99%, dew point 76), partly cloudy, wind N 0 mph; finish 88 (humidity 71%, dew point 77), mostly cloudy, wind S 8 mph. The humidity is what made my clothing wet. When it’s 50% or below a lot of my sweat evaporates. The wind wasn’t too bad but I could tell the difference when I made the turn north on FM 2100 to start back to Kingwood it became more of a tailwind except for the short section through Walden.
