My Motobecane Le Champion CF road bike felt neglected for so many days. Whenever I would go in the garage I looked longingly at it wanting to ride but held back because of the weather outside. Today the neglected ended. The sun shined and the temperature finally made it past the 60 degree threshold at 67 when I left home at 12:51. Since my last ride on December 4th the southeast Texas weather has turned cold and when it wasn’t cold it rained. By the time I returned home at 3:32 it was 68 degrees with a blue sky full of sun.

This time off the bike is dragging my yearly total down but I reached 6164 miles with today’s ride of 32.67 miles. With all of these days not riding (I avoided the dreaded windtrainer substituting removing wallpaper from our master bathroom) I thought my legs would be jelly but I managed to average 15.6 mph on the ride through Atascocita, Walden and Huffman. It felt great to get out turn those pedals.

I dressed warmly with short sleeve and long sleeve jerseys under a windbreaker. I probably could’ve made without the leg warmers but I wore them anyway. Half finger gloves were just right thanks to the warm sun. I wasn’t the only rider out today as I passed three other bicyclists. The first was on Old Atascocita Road at the railroad crossing. I said hi but I didn’t hear any response. The other two were too far away to greet: one on the FM1960 causeway over Lake Houston going the opposite direction and the other was on Atascocita Shores Drive also going the opposite direction separated by the esplanade.

Riding over Lake Houston on FM1960 I was struck by the calm water. It was almost like a sheet of glass with some small ripples. Near the middle is a clump of trees on the south side where a bunch of white pelicans gathered in the low limbs or floated in the water. I wondered if there were some geese among them.

My wife tells me I obsess over the weather and maybe I do but I am looking for the next riding day and they have been few and far between in December. Tomorrow looks like it could be another one with a clear sky and 69 degrees.

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