Dancing around the rain was what it took why I waited for the streets to dry off. It rained three different times before I could start biking. Each time it rained lightly and the wind blew enough to dry the streets off rather quickly. Finally at 2:12 I rolled out the driveway on the way to riding the “Huffman – Atascocita – Walden” route. Even though i ride this route most of the time it has been several days since I rode this particular route. Today I biked 31.92 miles averaging 14.6 mph. With the wind I am surprised I got my average speed as high as 14.8 mph on the way back home.
That wind was brutal. I battled it all the way to Old Atascocita Road and FM2100 where I turned left and it was finally at my back. Up to that point (18.1 miles) I exerted lots of effort riding into the hard wind. Going east over Lake Houston on FM1960 the wind kept trying to push me to the left. I had to keep a tight grip on the handlebars and constantly correct my direction. Riding about 5 feet from the concrete causeway guardrail should provide some wind break but it was so strong it didn’t make any difference. I looked at the water and saw waves with white caps. At the Huffman Chevron I looked at the weather and it showed the wind from the ESE at 10 mph with 17 mph gusts. It felt higher than that. When I got home looking at the airport weather I saw a SE wind at 24 mph with 32 mph gusts. The airport is out in the open and the wind can move without much in the way but I think where I was riding it wasn’t too much slower. If I had a sail I could make it home without pedaling. The clouds hid the sun most of the time but the 80 degrees still felt warm. My short sleeve jersey was just right.
At the Huffman Chevron I stopped to give my legs a break and eat. This time before I leaned back against the post I checked the aluminum paint; it was dry this time. Some love bugs weren’t so fortunate, they landed when the paint was wet and stayed there. I didn’t notice very many love bugs today probably because the wind was blowing them to another county. After resting my legs and eating I headed home. While I battled the wind to get to Huffman getting away from Huffman going west was fast. Now I built up my average speed to the 14.8 mph max for the ride. Riding west over Lake Houston was harder than the east bound trip. I didn’t have the concrete guardrail to block the wind. The 30mm section rims caught the wind and shoved me to the right and trying to correct this I then moved too much to the left. Passing traffic didn’t shield me from the wind. If someone were watching from behind I wove back and forth on the causeway. Thankfully it is only 2 miles long. The water on the north side of the causeway was almost without a ripple, vastly different from the other side.
After turning right off of FM1960 to ride through Atascocita to W. Lake Houston Parkway I got some relief from the wind amongst the houses and trees. I made good progress and maintained my 14.8 mph average speed. When I reached Kingwood Drive I waited awhile for a break in the rush hour traffic to get across (it was almost 5 o’clock). As I stood on the pedals to cross the street I could hear my rear tire rub and it took more effort to move. After I got to the other side I looked at the rear wheel for damage or something lodged but couldn’t see anything. I then checked the quick release and it was loose letting the rim move around. I tightened it and the rub went away and I pedaled much easier. I finished biking at 5:01. Though the sky looked like rain somewhere I stayed dry the whole ride.
Around 13 miles into the ride the Garmin 510 started beeping and a message came up on the screen and then it shut down before I could read it. I have no idea what caused this but I turned it back on, ignored the save data button and restarted the timer. All of the data up to that point was still there. The ride appears to upload correctly to Garmin Connect, Strava, RideWithGPS, Golden Cheetah. and Sports Track. Not sure why upload the rides to so many places. Redundancy backup I guess.
Tomorrow’s weather forecast: 83 degrees with a 50% chance of rain in the middle of the day. Hopefully it stays dry.
Huffman weather when I stopped at the Chevron
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Houston IAH Airport weather at the end of the ride
