As I got on my bike in the driveway and bent down to the handlebars I wasn’t sure I would be biking too far today. My head was a little foggy as I checked the Garmin 510 sensors to be sure the cadence sensor was showing up. Rolling out to the street my head cleared and I felt better riding to Northpark Drive and turning left onto the bike trail. The last time I rode was May 3rd, 21 days ago. Since then my wife and I have been on vacation in Florida, on a cruise ship to the Bahamas and spent 3 days in Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel. The later event was not planned, of course, but the others were. We had a great time driving around Florida. I am recovered from the hospital visit and today was a test ride to verify that.

I didn’t think I would ride more than 24 or 25 miles today but as the ride progressed I was comfortable and ended up riding 30.32 miles. My average speed was not that great, 14.3 mph, but I did not push it too hard since this was a get started type of ride. When I rode across Lake Houston on FM1960 I had a thought that within a mile of the causeway were four modes of transportation: boats, cars, bikes and trains. Then later when I left Huffman going to home I thought about the pasture on my right and the cows grazing within or close to the Houston city limits. The fourth largest city has cows inside the city limits! How different.

Weather helped me get back riding with 82 when I started at 11:20 and 88 when I got back home at 2:03. The humidity was 43% which helped. This morning it was 68 degrees which seems cool for this time of the year. Florida was chilly a few times as well with mornings in the 50’s.

It looked like I wouldn’t see any other bicyclists until I saw one on Atascocita Shores Drive decked out in a BMC team kit. He was going the opposite direction. I delayed the ride to watch stage 14 of the Giro d’Italia live.

May mileage is not going to be too much but I am up to 141.67 miles with 4 rides. The hospital visit delayed our return by 2 days cutting the potential ride days to 11. Tuesday and Wednesday look iffy with rain in the forecast. Year to date: 2279 miles. Link to RideWithGPS map and metrics.

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