Service Road Pinch
No bike riding yesterday (Sunday) due to 1.17″ of rain from the mid-morning to mid-afternoon. I took the day off as a rest day. Today is Labor Day (or Lazy Day in the cartoon Blondie). My wife and I will going to the movie this afternoon so I needed to start riding a little earlier. It helped that the Vuelta a Espana is on a rest day so no distraction there either. I got started at 9:20 and finished at 11:51. With the rain the humidity was 99% at the start. It didn’t take too long to get heated up and perspiration flowing. The 79 degrees was not quite low enough to compensate. By the time I got back home the temperature was 91 and the humidity dropped to 68%.
I rode the New Caney – Roman Forest – Valley Ranch route with a few street tweaks to add a mile or to the ride. While I was riding north on Loop 494 I looked in my rear view mirror and I saw another biker gaining on me from the rear. Around Community Drive he passed me. He was wearing a Boise State jersey and riding a Trek bicycle. I saw him turn left onto to FM1485 in New Caney and figured he was riding west but later when I was north of New Caney where Loop 494 joins the US 59 service road he made the turn to go south on Loop 494.
The route goes through the construction at Community Drive when I go south. Today I found out the service road was closed and traffic re-routed under the new overpass. Fortunately the traffic was light and forgiving. The road was narrow with concrete barriers in places so I will need to change my route to avoid this. The options are to go back on Loop 494, go west on FM1485, east on FM1485 or not go north of Community Drive. It could be many months before the service roads (north and south) return to normal.
The distance today was 33.2 miles averaging 15.3 mph. This repeats for the week and month as well. Year to date I am up to 5214 miles.
Stopping at Stripes on FM1314 was quick today in order to get back home on time. While I was stopped I was looking at the stem and decided to adjust the position to center it better than it was. For many rides I thought the stem was slightly off-center when looking at the Garmin Edge 510. I loosened up the two bolts and moved the stem slightly and it looks much better now. I supposed I will steer straighter too.
Tomorrow the weather could repeat today with 89 degrees and a chance of afternoon rain.
Links to Garmin Connect and RideWithGPS.
