Today my wife and I did some yard work before I rode and my start was not until 2:22. By then the temperature warmed up to a nice 90 degrees, I think for the first time for a ride this year. The sky had a haze tint to it probably from the heat and supposedly light wind. When I checked wunderground.com before leaving the wind was barely measurable at 2 or 3 mph. Out on the bike I think it was substantially stronger. When I stopped at the Huffman Chevron I checked weather.com on my phone and the wind was 15 mph from the SSE. This would explain the difficulty I had biking to the south and east. I could tell a big difference in my effort when I rode with the wind going north on FM2100 and west on FM1960 from Huffman. The wind at the big airport shows 14 mph from the south with 22 mph gusts, even more than I suspected.

Around the 20 mile point I was about 2 minutes behind the time I needed to average 15 mph. From that point to home I was able to make up that time and more to get my average speed up to 15.1 mph over the 32.72 mile ride. To add some variety to my ride I went on some streets and greenbelt trail sections that I don’t normally use going to Atascocita – Walden -Huffman. The intent was to add some distance to the usual 30 or 31 mile route so I can build up May’s mileage. May now totals 243.92 miles and year to date I rode 2337 miles.

Being Friday afternoon the traffic probably was a little heavier than normal but I might have finished just ahead of the bigger rush of traffic that builds up after 5:00. Also the clean shoulder on the FM1960 causeway over Lake Houston has almost disappeared with fresh debris now in most places. This is the place where the Gatorskin tires are most welcomed and needed. Over the years most of my flats took place on the causeway. One time I flatted in the middle of the causeway and a Houston Police Department officer gave me a lift to the west side. That was my first time to ride in the back of a police car; thankfully not arrested. It was a tight squeeze with the bike in the back seat and one tire in the trunk. It is impossible to patch a tube on the causeway because of the traffic noise. I usually walk to the closest end to make repairs.

I probably will not bike tomorrow because we are going to Galveston for a Houston Jeep People meetup. Put the bikini top on the Wrangler and head to the Seawall.

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