No riding yesterday (Thursday) due to a geezer day. I woke up to overcast skies and then the temperature slowly moved up to 72 degrees so I decided not to go riding. After a couple of naps I felt groggy just to seal the deal of being a geezer day.

I call today a bounce back day. When I went to the kitchen this morning around 7 AM I noticed the outdoor temperature at 54 degrees but sunrise would be in a half an hour and the sky looked clear as best I could tell. By 8:30 the doubt left and the sky was clear. The temperature moved up the scale so that by 12:05 when I started my ride it was 77 degrees with a very dry (for us at least) 34% humidity. During the 2 hours and 38 minutes I rode it went up to 84 degrees and the humidity dropped to 24%, very low for us. I could feel the dryness. No perspiration, dry wrist bands and dry shorts and jersey. When I stopped in Huffman at the Chevron station for my Diet Pepsi ritual the Greensheet I sat on stayed dry except for a small spot. The IAH weather station (see the gallery below) showed a calm wind but I think out on my route the wind would kick up from calm to around 10 mph or more at times especially when I rode north.

My route selection took me south and then to the east before turning back towards home. I rode through Eagle Springs, Walden at Lake Houston before going over Lake Houston to Huffman. Traffic was not a problem and the road surface is generally concrete. Road debris is heaviest on the causeway over Lake Houston for some reason but no tire issues so far after the ride. The route lasted 33.21 miles. At the the 20 mile point my average speed stood at 16.1 mph and at 30 miles I averaged 16.2 mph. By the time I got home at 2:38 my average dropped to 15.8 mph according to SportTracks (Garmin Connect and RideWithGPS.com showed 15.9 mph). SportTracks generously showed a 25.9 mph max speed but I think the real max is 21.9 mph from Garmin Connect and RideWithGPS.com. Riding time totaled 2:05:49 plus 26:30 stopped. After today’s riding the mileage totals: 133.23 miles this week, 482.34 miles for October and 5779.19 miles YTD. The Splits-Time slide below shows the average speed for each 5 mile section. The slowest occurred at the end of my ride. I rarely mention elevation gain and loss since it is flat as a pancake around here.

[wppa type=”slide” album=”41″ size=”auto”][/wppa]