The fog let up and the temperature went up for today’s bike ride. The streets were still damp in places but not enough to spray up as I rode. The last outdoor bike ride was last Tuesday and it felt good to be pedaling outdoors. I pressed the start button the Bolt computer at 11:16 AM as I rolled off riding my Lynskey R300 bike. The route headed north to Roman Forest Blvd. where i turned back to the south. By the time I finished at 1:42 PM I rode 32.56 miles climbing a whopping 33 feet. Not much climbing compared to my Zwift bike rides. This pushed my road miles for January to 260.2, only 40 miles short of my goal.
Weather conditions: 75 (82% humidity, 69.1 dew point), mostly cloudy, wind SW 14 mph gusts 22 mph; finish 71 (45% humidity, 48.4 dew point), overcast, wind NW 12 mph. I decided to wear two new items for today’s bike ride: Pearl Izumi Elite Gel Gloves (black) and a Voler long sleeve jersey. Little did I know the weather change waiting at New Caney. Riding north the wind helped get me to New Caney but as I pull onto the US59 frontage road from Payne Road I felt the wind shift from the SW to the NW and the drop in temperature caught my attention. The front I saw on the radar before leaving arrived and I worried about the chill before finishing the ride. When I made the u-turn at Roman Forest Blvd. I experienced a rare event biking, a tailwind when I biked north and a tailwind biking south, though it was a chilly one going south. I sped up to get home bumping my average speed to 14.8 mph at one point, thanks to the urgency and tailwind. As I pedaled to a stop at FM 1314 headed south the chill seemed to let up from that point on. I think I caught the leading edge of the front. As you can see in the conditions above the humidity and dew point dropped from the start time to the finish time and I felt the difference.
The new clothing.
No medals on the few Strava segments on my “New Caney – Roman Forest Blvd – Valley Ranch” route.
