The nice bicycling weather finally arrived in southeast Texas. It is supposed to hang around through Sunday but Monday might get it as well. The temperature was 78 degrees when I left home at 12:29 to ride the “Atascocita – Walden – Huffman” route. My ride earlier in the week went north so to keep it balanced I rode to the south and east. With the nice weather I left the jacket at home and wore a short sleeve jersey over a long sleeve one, shorts and no leg warmers were necessary. This was a good choice except for the first mile while my body warmed up and I rode out of the heavily shaded areas.

Once I was riding south out of Kingwood the shade thinned out and my body got warm. Nothing special happened along the route until I got to Huffman and the FM2100/FM1960 intersection. TXDOT is replacing the traffic signals so a bunch of trucks and workers from Traf-Tex were on each corner digging and pouring concrete for what looked like new traffic signal pole bases. I commented to the ladies inside the Huffman Chevron about all of the activity and they said it is hard to tell what will happen next at their corner. I noticed some railroad track replacement stuff laying beside FM2100 so that will probably be next.

I took a short break at the Chevron, sitting in the sun for the first time this year. It felt nice as I ate some donuts and a trail mix bar washed down with my water. The weather screenshot while I was there.

The time and temperature sign across the street reported 80 degrees as I was getting ready to leave at 2:25. I was 21.73 miles into the ride. I rode west on FM1960 comfortable in the “80” degrees until I got to the causeway over Lake Houston. The water is still cold from the winter and riding over the lake was chilly enough to go through my two jerseys and try to take my breath away. I did get a break whenever the traffic came by on my left and blocked the wind coming off the lake to the south. The closer I got to the west shore the less chill I got from the wind.

Riding through Atascocita away from the cold water I got warm again.

I got another chill riding north on W. Lake Houston when I was on the bridge over the San Jacinto River. The north shore was welcomed. When I got back home at 3:19 it was 75 degrees and still very sunny.

Tomorrow could be a few degrees warmer and Sunday could hold the same as well. I noticed the forecast for Harlingen in the Rio Grand Valley calls for 80+ degrees over the next few days.

My road bike reached 12035 miles which means I should change the tires, chain and rear cassette. I have 6000 miles on the continental Gatorskin tires with just a couple of flats which is why I chose these tires.

My Garmin Edge 520 stayed connected to my Nexus 6P phone for the entire ride without any “phone disconnected” messages. Since my last ride on Monday the Garmin Connect app had an update which might account for this.In fact as I write this the app updated again to version 3.2.1.

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