I left home this morning about 6:45 AM to drive to Conroe, Backing out of the driveway everything looked good but as I headed to I-69/US59 fog was closing in. In places it was quite dense. It was like this all the way to the Montgomery County Fairgrounds in Conroe. I was concerned I might be late for the 8:00 AM but with the fog the start got delayed until 8:25 AM but even then it was foggy in low places.
Packing the Stradalli Red Pro 14 yesterday evening I got a quick start on the road to Conroe. Since I didn’t pre-register I walked to the sign in area, filled out the form and paid my money. People were starting to gather anticipating that 8 AM start but the man speaking over the PA said he was not going to speed through all of the things he had to say hoping the fog would thin out. After I registered I started handing out Texbiker.net business cards giving away about 3/4 of the ones I brought. Back at the Jeep I unloaded the Stradalli, attached the Elemnt and water bottle and headed to the starting area. In the crowd where I stood the lady net to me also had an Elemnt bike computer so we talked about how we liked them. When I was handing out the Texbiker.net business cards two people told me they visit Texbiker.net frequently. One man told me he likes my ride stories. This makes it worthwhile.
Finally the fog agreed to let us go and we were off. I planned on riding the 51 route. The ride marshals were letting riders go in groups and I manged to be in the first group as they stopped the people behind me as they came to the line.
This is the second time I rode this ride and the route was the same. Generally the road are good but there are some sections not so good. On SH 150 in San Jacinto County the shoulder disappeared and the white line on the edge was where the warning grooves were residing. I found out the hard way when I tried to ride on the white line and got the ultimate vibration treatment. At the 25 mile rest stop a DPS trooper arrived and told us drivers were complaining about blocking traffic on SH 150 and warned us to ride single file. Cars and bikers would get a ticket if they broke the law. FM 1725 was a little better than SH 150 with no edge grooves and less traffic. FM 3081 was smooth with even less traffic, some hills but nothing too steep. The vibrating road was FM 1484 with the dreaded chip seal surface. I thought it would never end but ti did when the route turned onto FM 2432. What smoothness!! From there to the finish the road was generally good except when we entered Montgomery County Precinct #1 when the asphalt was broken in places with some potholes scattered around for good measure.
Starting around the 37 mile point a pair of riders, numbers 2162 and 2163, and I went back and forth changing positions. We stayed together until about 4 miles to go when they pulled away from me. They were pedaling smoothly and chatting between them whenever I was close to them. They may have been husband and wife.
I crossed the finish line at 12:13 PM with several people clapping and cheering. I biked 52.2 miles. This leaves me 307 miles to reach my YTD goal by the end of October of 6,800 miles. For the week I bicycled 225 miles.
Link to the photos I took before, during and after the ride.
Strava Ride Summary (click the image to go to Strava.com)
Strava Segment Efforts
