Another gorgeous bike ride day and I was out there enjoying it on the “Atascocita – Walden – Huffman” route. There was so much blue sky it was hard to take it all in. I start bicycling at 11:48 with a quick spin on the green belt trail to get to Elm Grove Village and then Sherwood Trails Village in Kingwood on the way south to exit Kingwood along W. Lake Houston Parkway. The weather during the ride.

Home Weather at the start

Home weather at the finish

Airport Weather at the finish

The 8 mph south wind had a chill in it making me glad that I wore a long sleeve thermal jersey under the short sleeve one. Regular bike shorts was just right thanks to the sun. My new Bellwether shorts are about 1/2″ shorter in leg length than my older shorts so I need to work on the sun tan to cover the white band below the shorts.

While I rode east over Lake Houston on FM1960 a red SUV passed me with rear bike rack and a sharp looking black and red bike. I wondered if I might see the SUV and bike later at the church south of FM1960 on Fairlake Drive. That turned out to be the case as I rode by the parking lot the red SUV and another SUV were there. The black/red bike was off the rack and the rider looked to be a woman. I waved and they rider waved back. The other SUV also had a bike on the ground but the rider was not looking my direction. After I rode by I thought about turning back to visit with them but didn’t. Some bikers park at the church and ride from there. I guess they do not like riding across Lake Houston although the road has a nice wide shoulder. Today TXDot was cleaning the shoulder on the west bound side as I rode east. Hopefully they glean the east bound shoulder too.

Continuing on Fairlake Drive to Old Atascocita Road east I could see some flashing lights at the FM2100 intersection. Approaching the intersection the flashing lights were from a work truck for a company that works on electric lines. The sign on the east side of FM2100 said “road closed” with orange cones on both sides blocking the road as well as the truck parked there. This was probably going to cause a problem for the bikers back at the church since they usually ride east on Old Atascocita Road to Ramsey Road. When I crossed FM2100 there were red flashing lights about a mile further east and the road looked like it was blocked. I wasn’t able to see what the problem was. Sometimes I ride that route and if that was my plan today I would have rode south on FM2100 to Stroker Road and back north on Ramsey Road.

I thought by the time I got back to Fairlake Drive I might see the red SUV leaving but that didn’t happen. I did see the Amtrak train pass through Huffman while waited for the traffic light to change at FM2100 and FM1960. It was moving a little slower than usual. When I rode across the tracks a few minutes earlier I saw another train’s bright light east of the crossing. I couldn’t see if it was on the siding waiting for the Amtrak train to pass or if the Amtrak train would move to the siding to allow the other train to pass.

No rest stop at the Huffman Chevron with the temperature not so hot and my water bottle still about 2/3’s full. This positioned me to ride back into Kingwood ahead of the school traffic. I crossed Kingwood Drive around 2:00 PM though the traffic was heavy. I waited a couple of minutes until two motorists all owed me to cross while they waited for the traffic to move. I finished the ride at 2:08.

With this being the last ride for January I need to recap and compare January 2017 with previous January’s.

Today’s ride summary. Links to RideWithGPS.com and Strava.com.