{"id":30661,"date":"2015-08-19T15:40:42","date_gmt":"2015-08-19T20:40:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.texbiker.net\/blog\/?p=30661"},"modified":"2015-08-19T15:40:42","modified_gmt":"2015-08-19T20:40:42","slug":"a-chilly-ride-with-thunder-and-lightening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.texbiker.net\/blog\/2015\/08\/19\/a-chilly-ride-with-thunder-and-lightening\/","title":{"rendered":"A Chilly Ride With Thunder and Lightening"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I got ready to leave on today’s ride (10:54) I checked the weather radar since the sky was cloudy in places. The rain was to the southeast and appeared to be moving to the east. I decided to ride the “Fairlake Drive – May Park Community Center – Huffman” route (3rd time on this route this year) because it offered some places to get out of the rain. As I rode south into Atascocita the curb area puddles started to appear. Riding through Walden I looked to the south and east and the dark clouds were in the distance but still no rain on me. I made my way to FM1960 to ride east over Lake Houston. The shoulder was dry but the low places had standing water. I turned south on Fairlake Drive and the sky over Crosby was getting darker. I made it to FM2100 and went to the left moving away from the dark clouds and looking at less stormy weather to the north.<\/p>\n

FM1960 east was next on the route to the Liberty County line where I turn left on Huffman – Eastgate to begin the return to Huffman. By now the sky was darkening and I could hear thunder once in awhile. So far no rain though. Willy Lane is where I turned right to head to the May Community Center. I stayed on that road until I got to the center and turned left on Wolf Road. At this point I started to feel a feel scattered rain drops or drizzle. It wasn’t much; I was sweating more than the drops produced. Now the thunder increased and the sky was getting darker as I raced to FM2100. The traffic light at FM2100 and Wolf Road doesn’t trip for bicycles so I rode into the Texaco station to get on FM2100 north of the light. Traffic was heavy of course since I was in a hurry to get to the Huffman Chevron and shelter. There were other places I could pull into between the Texaco and the Chevron stations but I wanted to get positioned for riding home if the rain caught up with me.<\/p>\n

I got across FM2100 and rode the shoulder to Huffman in a light rain drizzle. I still was sweating more than it was raining. The east wind was starting to be cool and the sweat was cooling me down more than I liked. Around 1:00 I rode into the Chevron at the 28.5 mile point. I went inside to get a drink after wiping some of the rain\/sweat from my arms and legs. It was ice cold inside with my wet jersey and shorts. I got back outside as quickly as possible. As I sat eating and drinking the thunder and lightening to the south and east picked up and I figured I should start home quickly. The weather screen shots at the Chevron station.<\/p>\n

\"8-19-2015 <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"8-19-2015 <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

In the image on the right I am at the little blue dot and the thunder and lightening is the yellow orange blob below and right of the blue dot. I need to ride to the area where the 85 is. The wind is my helper in this case coming from the SSE at 11 mph with 23 mph gusts. I got back on the bike and left the chevron. For the first time in months I was actually chilled as I rode west on FM1960. Between the cool wind and the wet jersey I was cold but by the time I reached Lake Houston I warmed enough.<\/p>\n

My goal was to ride 41 miles. I almost got there riding 40.92 miles<\/strong> today. For the second time this week I had to wash my bike when I got home. Though I didn’t ride in the rain once I left the Chevron station the shoulder was wet all the way to Atascocita Shores Drive and the streets were damp from there to West Lake Houston Parkway. Once I was on West Lake Houston Parkway the road wasn’t as wet and eventually dried the closer I got to home. I arrived home at 2:26 with dark skies to the south and east.<\/p>\n

Rain is possible this evening and maybe during the night. A “cold” front is supposed to arrive sometime Thursday. Not sure how that will affect my biking.<\/p>\n

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\"8-19-2015<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I got ready to leave on today’s ride (10:54) I checked the weather radar since the sky was cloudy in places. The rain was to the southeast and appeared to be moving to the east. I decided to ride …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22],"tags":[5206,5243,5226,1424,4699],"class_list":["post-30661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bike-ride","tag-bicycling-texas","tag-cycling-texas","tag-fairlake-drive-may-park-community-center-huffman","tag-road","tag-stradalli-rp-14-carbon"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4tok-7Yx","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.texbiker.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.texbiker.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.texbiker.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.texbiker.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.texbiker.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.texbiker.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30661\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.texbiker.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.texbiker.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.texbiker.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}