I put out our US flag early this morning to celebrate Flag Day. It didn’t take too long on today’s bike ride to see that many other people did the same thing. In the first mile there were probably 20 or more flags. On some streets every other house had a flag at the curb. With the gentle breeze many of them fluttered. I estimate I saw over 100 US flags during the ride today.
The last time I biked the route I rode today was July 13, 2013. I didn’t realize that until I was checking last night. This route is labeled New Caney – FM1485 – Huffman. The distance totaled 42.46 miles and I averaged 15.6 mph. This is the first time I rode on the recently resurfaced FM1485. The surface was smooth but the shoulder seems to be narrower than before. One thing added are the bumps under the white line marking the side of the lane. I don’t know how they put them down and if you don’t look closely you may miss seeing them. As part of the construction new gravel was added to the right edge of the asphalt and as a result at many corners the gravel has kicked up on the road. Most of the time I could ride through it without getting into the main lane but sometimes I swerved into the main lane to get around large amounts of rock. Fortunately traffic was spread out enough that it wasn’t a problem. The resurface was from the railroad tracks at Loop 494 all the way to the East Fork of the San Jacinto River. This was about 5 miles.
Once I crossed over the San Jacinto River bridge the shoulder widened probably because this is in Harris County. The road from the river to the Plum Grove Road also had been resurfaced but before FM1485. FM1485 becomes FM2100 at Plum Grove Rd. and looses the shoulder. For the first 1/4 mile there is a sharp drop off and then the drop off ends but still no shoulder for about 2 miles until Blue Lake Drive where I turned to start riding through the Commons of Lake Houston. This gets me off FM2100 and still ride toward Huffman. After winding through several streets I came out to Huffman-Cleveland Road. In the past I turned right onto Huffman-Cleveland to go to Huffman but today my water bottle was empty so I turned left and went to the Valero station on FM2100 across from where the Huffman-Cleveland Rd. joined FM2100. As I rode across FM2100 I saw the recent resurfacing work and the grooves cut into the shoulder. I expected the ride from the Valero station to Huffman would be smooth. After getting ice and water I headed to Huffman on FM2100. It didn’t take long to realize the resurface work caused the space to ride on the shoulder to be much narrower than before. The foot wide grooves were not as close to the white line as they should be by about 4 inches. This moved me to the right to a space not 2 feet wide with patches of rock and loose asphalt closing that down in places. This moved me well right of the traffic but I had to pay close attention to avoid the debris. This lasted until the Huffman-Cleveland Rd rejoined FM2100 at the traffic light. The shoulder increased to 6 feet or more from there to Huffman.
I stopped at the Huffman Chevron for Powerade and Kashi snacks and to rest. This was at almost 30 miles into the ride. Sitting under the canopy with the light breeze blowing felt great and the perspiration didn’t take too long to evaporate. Home was about 12 miles away since I was going past Kingwood High School rather than the route I usually take behind HEB. While I was at the Chevron station a train came through and I counted the cars the one engine was pulling: 48, mostly tank cars.
Leaving home at 10:37 the weather was mostly cloudy sky, 83 degrees, 64% humidity and a light breeze. I returned home at 2:00 under the same mostly cloudy sky, 91 degrees and 40% humidity. Maybe the lower humidity is why I did not seem to perspire as much today.
Mileage statistics:
- 213.11 miles this week (Monday through Saturday)
- 496.66 miles for June (388 miles left to reach my goal for June)
- 2900 miles year to date
- Links to Garmin Connect and RideWithGPS
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Tomorrow’s weather looks like a repeat of today except for some late afternoon rain possible. I may take the day off since it is Father’s Day and I have biked 16 days in a row.
