I took yesterday off to run errands and rest up but I took a bike ride today on the “Stroker Road – Huffman” route. I missed the grass farms so I wanted to bicycle over there to see what was going on. Well I didn’t see much movement but the grass was still there. The bike ride was 41.62 miles long which was one of the reasons I chose this route. I encountered a couple of road construction places: south bound W. Lake Houston south of Upper Lake Drive and Pinehurst Trail. With fall it must be our turn for road work. Speaking of road work, when I reached FM1960 at Pinehurst Trail I saw some new asphalt on the far side of the road but the lane closest to me was still rough old asphalt. Here’s a picture.

Riding across FM1960 once the light changed I spotted a void in the asphalt about the size of my hand. I hope they come back and patch it. I am not sure if there will a second layer since this one is very smooth and they painted the lines on it. After making my way through Walden at Lake Houston and approaching FM1960 on Atascocita Shores Drive I wondered if the shoulder from Atascocita Shores to the concrete Lake Houston Causeway would be done. It was and here is what it looks like.

The shoulder is now much smoother than the old one but I think it is narrower.

At the beginning of the bike ride as I was going east on Forest Village Drive less than a mile from the start I saw another bicyclist make a wide swing into a driveway. I saw this biker on other rides but not this close to home. As I rode by the driveway we exchanged waves.

It would be difficult to order much better biking weather than  today’s. The starting temperature (11:03) was 87 degrees, partly cloudy sky with a variable wind. By the time I finished at 2:28 it was up to 94 degrees. I sweated some on this ride. I wore my new Pearl Izumi Gel Select black gloves for the first time. My old gloves were showing bad signs of wear and tear.

The wind wasn’t a real issue until I got rode east of FM2100 where the wind break slowly fades away. One time on Old Atascocita Road a gust of wind hit from the right side and tried to shove me to the left but I held my position though I tilted a little to the left. Riding south on Ramsey Road a crew was working on setting half of a mobile home in place with the other half parked in the road. I made my way around it and enjoyed a brief break from the wind. About 2 miles later I turned right on Stroker Road and the wind was no longer trying to slow me down. Once I was on FM2100 riding north the wind was helping me.

In Huffman I stopped at the Chevron station for a break. It was 1:08 and 29.9 miles into the ride. The Elemnt screen and weather while I ate snack crackers and drank water.

While I was eating the Amtrak passenger train passed through Huffman. I guess it is back to using this track for a while. At 1:38 I rolled away from the station on my way back to Kingwood. I made a good pace until I was out on the Lake Houston Causeway where the south wind slowed me down but I still kept my overall average speed at 15.1 mph. The shoulder on FM1960 from the causeway to the right turn onto Atascocita Shores Drive was new smooth asphalt just like the other side.

When I got to Kingwood Drive I only waited a few seconds to get across since I was ahead of the Kingwood High School traffic. From there it was only a couple of miles to the end.

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