Two Dog Sprints on the Way to Crosby
After watching stage 2 of the Tour de Romandie this morning I went out ot the garage to check on the tire pressure on the Stradalli. The tires felt firm but the tire gauge showed about 60 psi. This might explain a little on my inability to ride faster in some situations. I hooked up the tire pump and inflated the tires to 110 psi.
It was chilly overnight with 52 degrees when I got to see my weather station around 7:45. This could be the last of the chilly weather until fall, I hope. I ate breakfast and read the paper while watching the replay of the Tour of Turkey. After breakfast I then switched to watching the Tour de Romandie to wait for the temperature to warm up enough to ride. I also messed with my cell phone installing an OS update. I will need to learn more about the OS changes. I didn’t realize until I stopped during the ride that I did not turn on data on the phone and the Garmin Live Track wasn’t working.
I got out of the driveway at 1:14 headed for a route I haven’t been on since the Humble Lions Club Ride back in February. That ride wasn’t exactly the same as the Lions ride but the majority of it was. I named today’s route “Kingwood – Crosby – Kingwood”. Since I didn’t bike yesterday (overcast sky, mid 60’s just didn’t light my riding fire) I wanted to get a long ride in to end April. I can’t ride tomorrow because we are going to the Houston Medical Center for my wife’s cancer treatment.
The route turned out to be 48.42 miles long. Weather was nice but it could’ve been warmer. My home weather station was 79 when I left and 72 when I got back home at 5:11. The wind had a chill to it and when the sun went behind the clouds it was cooler than I prefer. I checked the weather in Crosby and the wind showed to be calm but I know different. When I got home I checked the airport weather and the wind was 12 mph with 24 mph gusts. No wonder it was hard to pedal into the NNW wind.
I haven’t been on some of the roads since February and then I didn’t have any dog problems but today was different. The first dog sprint was at the Louie Road and Crosby – Eastgate Road intersection. Out of some high grass a large Doberman came running towards me with teeth bared and lots of barking. This caught be by surprise because of the grass and trees along a fence across the road. Fortunately the right turn put the wind at my back and I was able to increase my speed quickly and get some distance between me and the dog. Surprisingly the dog stopped at edge of a driveway coming out that was in his path. I guess maybe he was guarding his property and that is where it ended. With the wind at my back I rode south on Crosby – Eastgate to a stop sign at Lord Road. I had a choice to go right or left. I chose right but should’ve went left. The house on the right side of Lord Road had a nice high fence but the two gates were open. I could see two large dogs, one a German Shepherd, moving across the yard inside the fence in the direction I was going. The German Shepherd headed for the second gate and the other stayed inside the fence. I turned on the speed to out run the German Shepherd but he was fast. He ran in the grass beside the road just behind me. I could move to the left very far because a pickup truck was coming towards me. When the truck was almost to me the German Shepherd stopped running and turned back. I am not sure if he was tired or the pickup played a part or if his property protection ended. He didn’t bark much, just enough to let me know he was still there. Teeth were flashing too.
Not counting the dogs, I was able to ride at a strong pace today. I think the increased tire pressure helped. I built up my average speed to 16.3 mph by the time I reached Crosby at around 29 miles into the ride. At that point I started biking into the wind. It turned out that from the 29 mile point until I got home 19 miles later I rode into the wind. I pedaled strong and managed to keep my average speed from falling too far and not drop as much as I thought it would. By the end of the ride it was 15.5 mph.
The rest stop at the Huffman Chevron was needed. The legs and stomach both cried for some relief. I ate and drank while my legs regrouped. After a bout 25 minutes I was back on the bike headed home. I saw two other bikers during this stretch, one on FM1960 east of Lake Houston and the other on Kings River Drive. My body was glad when I reached home.
I did learn that FM2100 is busy in Crosby. The recently completed railroad overpass doesn’t have much of a shoulder and I wasn’t looking forward to biking up over it. Fortunately they left the old street along side the overpass which I rode. No traffic and no hill. On the other end of the overpass I took a quick break to check the traffic flow before riding on the 4 ft. shoulder to Huffman. Traffic was not a problem there.
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