There is a road surface worse than chip’n seal and I found it today. My plan was to ride the route from October 8th. On that ride I noticed some road construction ahead signs on SR 242 but did not see any thing going on. Well today I found out what they were doing. I don’t know the name of this road surface but it is what is left when one of those giant grinders removes the asphalt to prepare the road for resurfacing. The groves are noisy in a car but on a bike with 110 psi tire pressure it is like riding over little mountain and falling in the valley every inch or so. My head was vibrating so much I could barely see ahead let alone look in rear view mirror. There were two sections that were not too long and I was able to get through them and onto Firetower Road and then go to FM1485 thinking this would get around it. When I got to FM1485 there was road construction there as well but it was only for a 100 yards or so. This was chip’n seal but after what I had encountered on SR242 I was glad to see it.

I thought I would stay on FM1485 until it intersected SR242 and check to see if the grinder had made it that far. It looked like they had not made it that far so I started back on SR242 but I didn’t more than a mile and there was the grinder ruts again. This time I turned back and took another route. From there the road surface was back to normal.

Since I now have a new rear cassette I decided I needed to ride in a different gear combination so as long as I had a tailwind I used the “Big Ring” and a middle rear cog. This helped get my average speed up so when I turned south into the light wind I could still keep my average speed in the 15 mph range. With all of the route changes I rode 48.43 miles instead of the 43 I planned on. My average speed was 15.4 mph and max speed was 25.1 mph (different gears plus a light tailwind). My average cadence was 77.6 RPM.October miles are up to 536.71, this week’s total is 129.75 miles (I will rest tomorrow so that I don’t do too many days in a row) and year to date I have rode 4778.04 miles.

The weather was great again: 76 degrees at the start and 84 when I finished. Scattered clouds kept the heat down and the light 5 mph breeze was just about right.

10-22-2011 Bike Ride Data and Route Map

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10-22-2011 Home Weather End

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