Back on the bike again after taking Sunday and Monday off. Monday was overcast and in the low 60’s and I wasn’t motivated to go biking. Today I had 2 new pieces of equipment to try out motivating me to go riding. The first new item was the BiSaddle. I mounted it on my Canyon Endurance last night. The saddle has many adjustments but I left it with the factory settings for today’s ride. The second new thing is a silicon wrapper and lanyard for my GoPro Hero 7 Silver. Not as big of a deal as the BiSaddle but I hope it solves a couple of issues using it as a handheld camera. I left the sock wind muff at home and the lanyard let me keep the camera handy rather than digging it out of my jersey pocket.
I rolled off on the bike ride at 11:04 AM on my Canyon Endurace. The weather looked like rain was possible. Later when I was on 17th Fairway Drive I ran into light rain. Because the sky looked threatening I stopped at the Atascocita Library for 10 to 15 minutes until the dark clouds shift north some. I planned on riding what I call the “Atascocita – Walden – E. Lake Houston Parkway” route maybe extending to Huffman if the weather looked okay. I ended up making the u-turn at E. Lake Houston Parkway because the sky looked like rain might be to the east. As I rode back to Kingwood the overcast sky broke up letting some sun through, drying the streets off and warming the temperature. The ride covered 28.83 miles when I ended at 1:41 PM. My November now totals 609 miles, getting close to double my goal of 360 miles.
Riding south on W. Lake Houston Parkway a gust of wind blew off the dead cat microphone muff depositing it in the middle of the road. I quickly pulled over and laid the Canyon in the grass by the sidewalk and waited for the traffic to pass to retrieve it. Of course, the traffic increase moving the dead cat farther down the street. Finally the cars ended and one car waited while I walked out and picked it up.
Weather conditions changed during the ride and my kit choice turned out to be overkill as the ride progressed. I wore shorts, a long sleeve jersey, and a windbreaker jacket. A short sleeve jersey over the long sleeve one would’ve been better and no jacket. Weather at the start and finish: start 72 (91% humidity, 69.7 dew point), overcast, wind SE 9 mph; finish 78 (82% humidity, 72.1 dew point), mostly cloudy, wind SE 20 mph. The 20 mph wind made for hard pedaling riding east over Lake Houston but helped on the return trip.
The main purposes of the ride was to check out the new saddle and lanyard so I didn’t focus on power and speed. Strava still reported my ride was consistent with my usual efforts.
