Today I met two other bikers at the Kings Crossing Shopping Center to ride a south and east route. When I left the house at 8:45 the temperature was a paltry 55 degrees  so I dressed in two long sleeve jerseys, leg warmers, shorts and a windbreaker jacket. By the time I got to the shopping center I was warmed up and ready to brave the cool temperature. The wind was calm when we pulled out but as the ride progressed it picked up and when I got home the weather website reported 15 mph from the south. No wonder our speed dropped down when we turned into it. By the time I got home it was 70 degrees and my jerseys and jacket were soaked

As we approached FM1960 to go over Lake Houston we started to see many bikers coming from the east probably headed home or to Bike Barn as part of their Saturday ride. We kept seeing them until we turned north on FM2100 away from their route. I guess we saw 35 to 50 bicyclists. This was the first time my fellow riders had ridden this route. In the future I will have to take them on a tour of the grass farms over by Crosby. When we rode south on Timber Forest we stopped for a few minutes waiting on a number of runners to cross the street. Every time it looked like a break here came another bunch of runners. This is a switch from when I go on organized rides and people stop for bikers.

Our route was about 35 miles long from the shopping center but mine totaled 39.33 miles because I rode from home and back at the end. This increased my April mileage to 135.26 and 1449.90 year to date. My average speed was 15.4 mph. Traffic seemed a little heavier for a Saturday but some areas were having garage sales. Links to Garmin Connect and RideWithGPS.com.

Yesterday I was wondering how many miles I had on my current set of Continental Gatorskin tires so I looked in SportTacks, a program I use to track my biking. My front tire was mounted on 3/12/2012 at odometer reading 6439. Today’s odometer reading is 13018 which says the front tire has 6579 miles on it. I have never had a bike tire last that long. Usually I got 3000 miles on tire before the flats increased to a point that I replaced it. The current rear tire is not as long lived. The rear tire I installed on 3/12/2012 lasted 4224 miles and I replaced it on 10/5/2012 with my current rear tire, a Continetal Gatorskin. I replaced the tube at the same time because it had 5 patches. Since 10/5/2012 the current rear tire has 2355 miles and looks good. The number of flats dropped quite a bit with these tires. I did switch to a wider 25mm tire with the Gatorskins. I may rotate the rear tire to the front and install a new one on the rear. This should allow another 4000 miles on both tires before a need to change them.

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