Since my last ride on the 18th I have suffered fever, chills, coughing, bronchitis, antibiotic medicine  and cold weather. All of this has kept me off my bike needless to say. I am starting to recover and went for a ride today to test my condition. Coughing from time to time meant my bronchitis is not over yet but I can tolerate. January has not been kind to me and my wife this year. Whatever I had she had it times two.

Anticipating today’s great weather yesterday I worked my the Stradalli RP-14 road bike. I waxed the chain and installed a new 34T front chainring. With over 5400 miles on the bike/chain ring I figured the 34T ring must be worn. It wasn’t drastic but the valleys between the teeth looked wider than the new one. I previously replaced the rear cassette and chain. I want to keep the drive train components around similar mileage. I am still waiting to put new tires on. The current ones are still performing well. No flats.

The weather was too good to not ride today. 81 degrees when i got back at 3:00, clear blue sky and no wind to speak of. Tomorrow is supposed to repeat as well as Thursday. I plan on biking tomorrow but Thursday is iffy because I take my wife to the oncologist.

I wanted to ride to the north but chose the Atascocita – Walden – Huffman route in case I needed to cut the ride short for some reason. The New Caney – Gene Campbell Road route doesn’t have any options to shorten the ride once I get to New Caney. It was great getting out of the house and in the sun.

My wardrobe selection was probably overdone considering how warm it was: shorts, long sleeve jersey and a jacket. I was comfortable and with my coughing it was better to be warm than chilly.

The ladies at the Huffman Chevron asked where I had been. I said the cold weather was too much for me.

Today’s ride was 32.09 miles long. Reaching my goal for the month is now impossible unless I ride a century or two by the end of the month. This is not likely with the weather turning chilly and wet again on Friday. So far I biked 106.03 miles this month. If I can ride 30+ tomorrow I can cut my losses to less than 200 miles for the month.

Average speed was 14.3 mph falling to 14.1 mph at the end of the ride. I did not try to push a big gear in fear of starting a coughing spasm. Slow and steady is the goal for now. The Golden Cheetah program and Garmin Connect are in agreement on most of the ride metrics. I will show Garmin Connect for now.

RidewithGPS map, charts and metrics.

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