It was a dramatic finish at the UAE tour as I watched before today’s bike ride. There would be no dramatic finish for my ride but there was a 10 minute unplanned break. The weather forecast calls for warm weather this week and I’m ready for it. I aired up the tires on my Cervelo Caledonia and wiped off some dirt from the last ride. Getting dressed and walking the Cervelo to the driveway I pressed the start button on the Bolt computer at 11:12 AM and rolled away. I chose my Atascocita – Walden – Spanish Cove Drive route riding south and east because I rode to the north yesterday. I rode this route last week too. Before the ride I needed 58 miles to reach my road mile goal of 300 miles for the month. Today’s ride would get me close to that. I rode 35.5 miles today putting me at 278 miles. One more ride should do it.
Wind was going to be a challenge on the bike ride. At the start it was from the SW at 13 mph with 23 mph gusts. The challenge would be riding from Huffman back to Kingwood into the headwind. Most of the ride to FM 2100 at FM 1960 I did not confront the headwind but the 3+ miles west from FM 2100 was into the headwind. I managed to use the 35×13 gears until I got to marina on the east side of the lake but riding over the lake I shifted to the 35×15 because my legs could not push the pedals. Even after shifting to the 35×15 my speed fell to 9 – 11 mph. Once I reached Atascocita shores Drive and turned right the wind came at my left side. This was good but around 28.5 miles those heavy clouds you can see in the video turned to rain. I rode about 1/2 of a mile in the rain until I moved to the shelter at Kings Crown Estates. I waited there for about 10 minutes for the rain to stop and the streets to dry a little.
On Kings River Drive the pavement was wet and then drying. This alternated as I rode across the San Jacinto River until I crossed Kingwood Drive where the streets were dry until I finished. Back home at 2:11 PM I washed the Cervelo to clean all of the splattered mud. I don’t really like mud.
For some reason the power meter didn’t record watts from 29.02 miles to 31.26 miles. 29.02 miles is about where I stopped to wait out the rain and 31.26 miles is around where I turned right off of W. Lake Houston Parkway onto Magnolia Cove. I check some previous rides and there weren’t any voids in recorded watts.
Weather conditions: start 74 degrees, 79% humidity, dew point 67, mostly cloudy, wind SW 13 mph gusts 23 mph; finish 77 degrees, 76% humidity, dew point 69, mostly cloudy, wind W 10 mph gusts 18 mph.
Gear and power data from AXS.SRAM.com ride report.
