On the way home from church I was thinking about what route I should ride today. My first inclination was to ride to Huffman to complete the route I could yesterday. Driving east on Northpark Drive I saw the signs for Dr. Mosby’s car show at Town Center in Kingwood. This made up my mind to ride the opposite direction because of all the traffic at the car show. To ride to Huffman I go south on W. Lake Houston Parkway and its tough to avoid the Town Center area. The route I chose was the Oakhurst – Cumberland – Valley Ranch one.

While eating an apple and Kashi trailmix bar I watched the video of the last 2.2k of the Liege-Bastogne-Liege race from Europe. I looked at the weather and noticed the wind was really blowing. When I left at 11:45 it was from the south at 20 mph with 32 mph gusts. By the time I got back home it dropped down a little to 16 mph and 26 mph gusts. It was really tough riding into the wind with the gusts. The worst places were on the south bound US59 service road after I exited Valley Ranch and Loop 494 from FM1314 to the turn onto Adams Street getting back into Kingwood. Temperatures during the ride were late spring like; 87 at the start and 90 at the end. With these temperatures the long sleeve jersey stayed in the closet. I wore my newest Texbiker.net short sleeve jersey with sunscreen and shorts. The strong winds were bringing the warmer weather in.

I wondered how the Continental Gatorskin 700×25 tire on the rear rim would ride compared to the Schwalbe Ultremo ZX I replaced after yesterday’s ride. A good test was when I was back in Kingwood almost home. I went around a corner and hit a rock or piece of concrete causing it to shoot off toward the yard. I winced thinking a pitch flat was going to come from this but the Continental Gatorskin stayed firm the last 2 miles to home. Other than the mismatched colors of the tire sidewalls the Gatorskin looks like it will be a great replacement.

Today’s ride was 30.12 miles at a 15.1 mph average speed. The lower average is from the strong wind where I bogged down to 12 mph or so. I am within 4 miles of April’s goal; 774.14 miles for April. This week I biked 242.66 miles and year to date 2034 miles.

Monday’s weather keeps gyrating away from rain and then back. The temperature could be in the low 90’s. If the rain stays away I plan on biking.

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[iframe http://connect.garmin.com:80/activity/embed/488492513 465px 548px] Link to RideWithGPS ride metrics and map.