Thank goodness for a few days of rest before I tackled today’s ride. The legs were called on for several stretches of headwind pedaling. I saw a Houston Chronicle alert that the wind was going to kick up this afternoon but it said northwest Harris county would be more likely to be where it was. But I think it slid east to to northeast Harris and Montgomery counties. I left home at 1:03 under a brilliant blue sky, 74 degrees and a 15 mph south wind with 23 mph gusts. The gusts were more steady than I thought they would be. Normally by the time I finish the ride the wind will die down some but not this ride. When I got home at 3:56 the temperature was a great 80 degrees, the sky was still a nice blue and the wind was the same as when I left.

With the south wind my usual route selection would be to go south into the wind at the start but I chose to ride north to New Caney and then west to Gene Campbell Road before turning back to home and into the wind. The route totaled 35.86 miles which was the reason I wanted to go north and thanks to the starting tailwind my average speed came in at 15.9 mph. I built up some extra time so that when I was slowed by the wind I could still keep the average speed up. Being off the bike since last Friday meant the legs were rested although Sunday afternoon I spent 4 hours on an extension ladder re-fixing the ceiling fan that I thought I fixed on last Thursday. This time I think the fix will stay.

After today’s mileage I crossed the 1000 mark for the year coming in at 1004 miles. March so far totals 299.62 miles. This leaves 205 miles to reach the March goal of 505 miles. I’ve only biked 1 day this week so today’s miles is it.

I am waiting for the bike shop to call so I can go pickup my new Stradalli RP14 bike. They said they could finish the assembly today.

Tomorrow’s weather forecast calls for partly cloudy sky and 73 degrees, slightly cooler than today.

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