On my first trip into my closet I brought out my mountain bike shoes, a long sleeve jersey and bike shorts. I thought the temperature would not get much higher than the 71 degrees or so at 10:30 but by the time I got free to go riding around 11:30 the temperature moved up to 78 degrees. So the second trip to the closet I switched to my road shoes and a short sleeve jersey. The forecast called for 79 to 80 degrees so I took the forecast at their word. I pulled out of the driveway at 11:55 with the intent to ride 30 miles or more. This would be my first road bike trip since November 9th. I was ready to hit the streets and roads.

There wasn’t a whole lot of thought in selecting my route so I chose one that I travel frequently: Atascocita – Walden – Huffman. I figured this would get me the 30 mile goal with a mile or two to spare. I ended up biking 32.28 miles at a nice 15.8 mph average speed, 25.9 mph top speed (SportTracks), 21.2 mph according to Garmin Connect, 21.1 mph RideWithGPS.com. Average cadence came in at 81.2 RPM. The riding time totaled around my typical time for this distance at 2:02:11 plus 32:39 stopped time.

Traffic wasn’t a big deal except for a couple of spots where I need to cross heavily traveled streets. The trip wire at Atasca Oaks and Atascocita Road did not sense my wheel so I motioned for the car behind me to move closer to trip the signal. After one missed cycle this solved the problem. Later on the next delay did not involve a traffic light but just a stop sign as I came out of Kingwood Greens onto north bound W. Lake Houston Parkway. Earlier when I rode north on W. Lake Houston traffic was very low but once I turned into Kingwood Greens they must have let the gate open. The next bottleneck was getting across Kingwood Drive. Again as I approached the crossing point there wasn’t any traffic but as I got to Kingwood Drive a flood of cars came out of the trees. I finally got across Kingwood Drive with about 2 miles to home. I finished at 2:30. Total time gone: 2 hours and 35 minutes.

Even though we are deep into November the weather does not feel like fall. Partly cloudy skies at the start the ride faded to mostly cloudy at the end. At Huffman I stopped at my usual Chevron station and sat on a milk crate in some sun to not cool off too much. The wind moved from north at 7 mph to east at mph by the time I got home. The home weather station registered 2 mph wind from the southeast when I finished. With all of the trees and houses the wind does not usually agree with the official weather station.

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