The “Atascocita – Walden – Huffman” route on the bike ride took me past the early voting place at the Kingwood Library. Traffic is heavy with a great number of people parking cars on the street with the parking lot near capacity. I made my way slowly through the area and decided to not go there on the way back. We voted early yesterday at the same place and for the first time that I can remember there was a long out of the building into the parking lot waiting to vote. I wonder if the same number of people will vote on November 8th.

I didn’t ride the streets north of Northpark Drive that add a couple of miles to the route so this put the total miles for the bike ride at 31.61 miles, about 2 miles less than normal. Riding south on W. Lake Houston Parkway traffic backed up after the Kings River Drive traffic light. I couldn’t see the cause but guessed it was road construction. Moving to a crossover Pine Trail Lane I turned left into the homes behind W. Lake Houston Parkway. From there I rode to Upper Lake Drive and back to W. Lake Houston Parkway. At the intersection the construction equipment sat but no workers were around. I turned left and rode the greenbelt trail to Kings Parkway and then back on the streets. After that I didn’t need to detour and the bike ride proceeded as usual.

The wind felt stronger than during yesterday’s ride and when I reached the Huffman Chevron I stopped for a rest. With the low humidity but comfortable temperature I decided I didn’t drink enough so I bought a large blue Powerade and sat down in the shade. At first it was a little chilly with the wind blowing around my wet jersey but it didn’t take long to dry and then I was more comfortable. It was at the 19.9 mile point that I arrived at the station as shown on my Elemnt screen data. The weather shows the wind and low humidity (for Houston at least) while I was resting.

While I ate I noticed the large number of 18 wheeler dirt trucks driving on FM1960. I noticed these earlier but mention them. There must be a big construction project to the west because the trailers are full when they go east beyond Huffman somewhere and empty when the truck returns. Oh, curiosity can get the best of me. With no information I got ready to leave and pulled onto FM1960 at 2:18. With the brisk east wind I made good time riding west. As I rode onto the Lake Houston Causeway I saw a blue fishing boat slowly glided on the smooth blue lake and took these pictures.

The ripples are from the boat moving to the dock at the marina. After taking the pictures I got back on the bike and headed to Kingwood. It was after the high school dismissal so I figured traffic at Kingwood Drive would be heavy. I rode through Kingwood Greens but avoided the library voting crowd. At Kingwood Drive I used the traffic light to cross. Riding north I looked at the recently closed HEB store on my left and the new HEB to my right across W. Lake Houston Parkway. The parking lot on my left was almost empty, the signs gone while the parking lot to my right looked full and busy.

I finished the ride at 3:07 (it started at 12:16). The great weather calls me to ride and it should be the same tomorrow (Friday). I may try some different gearing on that ride. Usually I use the 34 x 13 combination as my “big” gearing. I may shift to the big ring up front and a smaller rear cog. I will experiment on which rear cog gives a higher gear that my legs can push.

Yesterday I added a new feature from Relive.cc that shows the bike route in motion. It uses the ride data from my Strava.com data. It can take a few hours to alert me to the link. I will add it later.

[iframe https://www.relive.cc/view/757792920 500px 500px]

[iframe http://rwgps-embeds.com/trips/11682028/embed 600px 600px]

[iframe https://www.strava.com/activities/757792920/embed/4ac43b04084aa2c19d198403d8c2ee6aac3d9159 590px 405px]