{"id":25030,"date":"2014-07-19T15:56:16","date_gmt":"2014-07-19T20:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.texbiker.net\/blog\/?p=25030"},"modified":"2016-11-12T20:19:40","modified_gmt":"2016-11-13T02:19:40","slug":"a-biking-route-waffle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.texbiker.net\/blog\/2014\/07\/19\/a-biking-route-waffle\/","title":{"rendered":"A Biking Route Waffle"},"content":{"rendered":"

I waffled back and forth on today’s route. The reason is that US59 north bound is closed at FM1314 and I thought traffic would increase on Loop 494 as traffic tried to get around the closure at Community Drive and the Grand Parkway construction. I considered riding the grass farm route over by Huffman but after remembering the last US59 closure and the traffic I chose a north route. I wanted to get 40 miles or so but with a later start I knew I wouldn’t go too much farther.<\/p>\n

Riding out of Kingwood through Woodridge Forest I then stayed on Loop 494 to New Caney. Loop 494 traffic started to get heavy when I reached FM1314 and stayed that way until FM1485 in New Caney. This wasn’t much of a problem since Loop 494 has a 4 foot shoulder most of the way. There was a dicey moment at the New Caney ISD bus barn stretch when a really wide load truck and trailer passed me. Fortunately there was no oncoming traffic and the truck moved to the left around me. The cargo looked industrial but I am not sure what it was.<\/p>\n

At FM1485 the traffic returned to normal as I rode to SR242. I turned left onto SR242 riding to the Old Houston Road traffic light. If I had time to ride longer I would stay on SR242 to FM1314 but I took the Old Houston Road south to FM1314. This road has little traffic. Reaching FM1314 it was a 7 mile ride to the Stripes station at FM1314 and Valley Ranch Parkway where I stopped about 25 minutes to dry off some, eat and rest. At that point I rode 29 miles with a little over 11 miles to home. While I was a Stripes another customer walked over asking if my bike was one of the expensive ones. I said yes and he then asked about riding on my narrow saddle. I told you can get use to it and he asked if it took several years to do that. I answered probably 4 or 5 months. I don’t think he believed me. He walked back to his big Chevy pickup with his two sons. They were friendly as they backed out.<\/p>\n

The route totaled 40.26 miles<\/strong> which accomplished my goal and I got home by 2:45 after starting at 11:33. Average speed was 15.9 mph.<\/p>\n

After all the rain we had this week and before, today’s weather was unusual for July. It was 80 degrees (97% humidity) when I started and 82 (96% humidity) when I finished. The sky was mostly cloudy and the sun did not have much of a chance to warm things up too much. With the perspiration and moving through the light breeze it felt like a fall day. A couple of times I thought a long sleeve jersey would be nice. A note on the humidity: this is from my home weather station. The IAH weather station humidity at the end was 70%.<\/p>\n

Mile markers:<\/p>\n