In the continuing quest to reach my August goal I biked over 40 miles for the second day in a row. Before leaving home at 10:15 I checked my ride history on the “Kingwood – Hare Cook Road – Kingwood” route to be sure I duplicated the previous rides as close as possible. I rode 43.76 miles today which is close to the other times I rode this route in 2015. Below is a comparison summary of the rides:

All 4 rides are 43 miles but the decimals are different. It is tough to ride that mileage and not vary. With this ride I am at 85.91 miles for the week, 164.32 miles for the month and 4286 miles for 2015.

The weather was different today. The sky was mostly cloudy keeping the sun at bay and the temperature a few degrees lower. The humidity went up some making my perspiration more plentiful. The weather when I stopped at 32 miles into the ride at the Huffman Chevron.

No excitement at the Chevron station today at least while I was there. Earlier at FM2100 and Old Atascocita Road there was a biker in the grass working on his tire when I crossed over FM2100 heading toward Ramsey Road. I stopped to see if he needed any help. He thought the rough road caused the flat and was going to put a different tube in. He had his pump attached to a tube so I knew he had that covered. He said a friend of his had a flat along the same stretch of road last week and also attributed it to the rough road. Most bikers go west on Old Atascocita Road after riding east of FM2100. I agree the road is rough in the west bound lane but I haven’t had any problems with flats. My fats usually happen on the FM1960 causeway over Lake Houston with wire but I haven’t had a flat in a long time. I think the Continental Gatorskin tires are the reason for not having flats. As of today I have over 3500 miles on the pair on my rims. I am thinking about changing them at 4,000 miles. The front tire has a sidewall cut but it is not causing any problem. If it didn’t have the cut I would rotate the tires but I am not sure the front tire would survive on the back with the sidewall cut. After seeing the biker was okay I headed east on my route. Later the route went by this spot as I rode to Huffman. He was not there which is good. If he was I would be concerned since it was about 50 minutes later.

I got to Huffman about 12:30 and thought I might see the Tuesday Amtrak train but while I was at the Chevron station two freight trains went through cancelling the likelihood of the Amtrak train using the same tracks. After 30 to 35 minutes at the Chevron I headed home for the last 11+ miles. At that point my average speed was 15.1 mph before I stopped for a break and when I left it was 15.0 mph. I built it back to 15.1 mph and kept it there until the 41 mile point when I got to Kingwood Drive. From there the winding path, stop signs and general slow riding dropped it to 14.8 mph byt the time I got home at 1:56. My home weather at the end of the ride.

Tomorrow I plan on biking to the north for some variety. I hope to go 38+ miles. Today marks the 9th consecutive day of biking. I will try to keep that string going.

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