Evacuation From the Cold But Back to Ride Now
You may have noticed the lack of daily news digests since January 11th. My wife and I couldn’t take the cold any longer and we took a cruise to Merida and Cozumel, Mexico. It was warmer there as promised. I might think of this trip as an evacuation. I have not rode much this month and sticking around to suffer was not good. We got back today with the southeast Texas weather improved over when we left on Monday the 12th. We got back in time to ride this afternoon after doing some unpacking.
I wish I could say I rode enough to make up for the missed days but it is not so. I did ride 29.84 miles on the Atascocita – Walden – Huffman route. Apparently I wasn’t the only person wanting to ride. I saw three other bikers over the route. I might have been the most dressed with windbreaker jacket, leg warmers, shorts, long sleeve jersey and a new pair of half-finger Pearl Izumi Elite Gel Glove. I have had these gloves for almost a year. I hated to stop using one of the old pair but with the new year I decided it was time to retire one old pair. I have two other pair of old gloves that will be retired on each of the next two rides. In the Texas sun the red gloves fade to pink over a few months. Today’s new pair was white and black. They shouldn’t fade as quickly.
This was the first road bike ride of the year (also the second one of the year) and it felt good to be on the bike. The weather was chilly at times when I going into the 12 mph SW wind especially in the shade. When I was getting ready I almost left the leg warmers off but I am glad I didn’t. It was 71 degrees on my home weather station when I left home at 1:55. I figured this being the first road ride I wouldn’t push the speed so much. As a result my average speed topped out at 14.9 mph and settled at 14.7 mph overall.
The road on this route hasn’t changed since my last ride but I did notice some piles of sand on the shoulder of the FM1960 causeway eastbound over Lake Houston. Maybe while I was gone or since my last ride TXDot thought there was a chance of ice.
I want to add a route back to my list this year for some variety. It has been many years since I rode to Dayton on FM1960. I want to go there a few times. It would be about 40 miles round trip. During my absence FM1960 has changed east of the railroad overpass east of Huffman. What used to be chip seal pavement is now asphalt. In some places a center turn lane has been added which compresses the shoulder some but I don’t think it is enough to cause a problem to biking. I am not sure when the first ride will happen though.
So far I have rode 48.7 miles in January. It looks like I will be way short of last year’s 329 but the next few days look promising and I will take advantage where I can.
During our cruise stop in Merida we were talking with one of the tour guides about what he does. Currently cruise ships come to Merida on Tuesday and Wednesday. This leaves the rest of the week and we were curious what Phillipe did. He is a professional photographer most of the time with some part time jobs but most interesting he is starting to race bicycles. He practices several times a week to learn and build up his physical strength. We also learned in August it can get up to 120 degrees which kills the tourist business. During the winter months many US and Canadian citizens come to live. The tour guide pointed out the American stores: Costco, Home Depot, Sam’s Club, Office Depot and many fast food places. The population of Merida is over 1 million. On the drive to and from the cruise ship we passed auto dealers for Mercedes, Porsche, Jaguar, BMW plus some that are not in the US.
Now that we are back I hope the weather starts warming up to allow me to ride.
RideWithGPS and Garmin Connect maps, metrics and charts.
