I decided to not ride the Liberty Freedom Ride this morning and opted to watch the final stage of the Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco (Tour of the Basque Country) instead. After the race ended I got ready and rode the “SR242 – FM1314” route for 46.62 miles. This a couple of miles more than the Liberty Freedom route I would’ve rode. I started at 11:14 with great weather: clear sky, 80 degrees, strong wind from the south. The wind propelled me all the way to SH 242 but making the left turn onto SH 242 the wind was now coming from my left and not as helpful.
At FM 1485 I stopped for a minute at the gas station for a rest and to drink some water before battling the wind from there to FM 1314. Thankfully the trees on the south side of SH 242 blocked some of the wind until the turn at FM 1314. On FM 1314 I discovered the road was now four lanes from SH 242 to the concrete road began about a mile east. Previously this was one lane each way with a center turn lane. Fortunately the shoulder was about 3 feet wide not counting the orange construction barrels along the side. The barrels were leaning away from the road so I had enough clearance to stay out of the main traffic lane. The wind was more of a headwind while riding SE on FM 1314. I could see the wildflowers blooming and took these pictures.
The bluebonnets are missing along this road. They are more evident on US59 near Splendora.
I stopped at the new Exxon station at FM 1314 and Gene Campbell Road for a rest break. I ate two trail mix bars and refilled my water bottle. As I was getting ready to leave I saw my church’s education director come out of the store. Lisa was on the way back from Conroe and stopped for a Subway sandwich. We chatted before I got on the bike to leave. I also spoke with a man as he came out of the store. He encouraged me to stay active and said he was 67 years old and planned on staying active to enjoy life. I agreed with him.
Yesterday the new Barfly mount arrived and after much head scratching I figured out how to select the right mount for the Wahoo Elemnt and how to attach the GoPro type mount to hold the PowerPod power meter. It held the two perfectly during today’s ride. My next challenge is figuring out how to update the firmware for the Wahoo Bluetooth cadence sensor. The Android utility app downloads the firmware file (it says anyway) but fails when it tries to flash the new file to the cadence sensor. I sent an email to Wahoo support but being the weekend I didn’t expect a reply until Monday or later. There was a comment on yesterday’s ride post from Phill Lucas about the PowerPod blinking red status light:
“If the light flashed red a few times and goes dark, the speed sensor is not transmitting data. If the powerpod blinks red constantly, the battery level was low. In this case it kept blinking so it was the battery charge level, but it looks like it worked for the full ride nonetheless. You usually have 90 minutes (oftentimes more) when the light starts flashing.” I charged the PowerPod and the blinking red light went away during today’s bike ride. I will not wait as many rides before charging the next time.
The “love bugs” flew around me while I rode on SH 242 so they are coming out of their hiding places. They aren’t a big problem unless I have my mouth open and they fly in. At the Exxon station I swatted a few away.
With today’s miles I am ahead of schedule to reach April’s 772 mile goal: 229.35 miles so far. I am on schedule to reach my year goal too but not ahead by much: 1817 miles so far. Tomorrow I plan on a shorter bike ride. The weather forecast looks good.
Strava.com link and below is an image using a Google Chrome browser extension that spits out more charts and graphs than I know what to do with. The extension is Stravistix. The Golden Cheetah ride summary is shown on the right. Click on the image to enlarge it.
Home weather at the start and airport weather at the finish finish. Notice the wind in the right image.
[iframe http://rwgps-embeds.com/trips/13827294/embed 70% 700px]
