I thought a bike ride to the north would take me away from the “love bugs” but they flew around during most of the ride today. I chose the “New Caney – Roman Forest – Valley Ranch” route to ride 40+ miles and ended up biking 42.2 miles. The ride start was delayed until 11:30 as I handled some issues on my “side gig”. My original plan was to leave around 10 am so that I would be back in time to take my niece to get her haircut but with the late start I asked my wife to fill in for me. While I was resolving the issues I watched stage 5 of Vuelta a Espana with a hard uphill finish in the last 2 or 3 kilometers. No hills on my bike ride though.

While I waited I learned that a storm named “Harvey” that had crossed the Yucatan peninsula earlier this week gained strength over the Gulf of Mexico and might come ashore in Texas. If so, lots of rain may be here Friday through Sunday and cause me to not ride which in turn might keep me from reaching my 800 mile goal for August. That is why I lengthened today’s bike ride to 40+ miles. With today’s ride I am up to 662 miles and I plan on riding 40+ miles tomorrow (Thursday) and that would leave 98 miles to hit my goal. It depends on how long the rain stays in the Houston area if at all. Not biking this past Sunday may come back to bite me.

In the meantime today’s weather has no hint of upcoming rain though I rode on a damp Appian Way in Roman Forest near the new Dogwood Elementary school (probably a stray rain cloud). This school has a lot of blue/green sprayed grass covering the dirt which might wash away if we get the amount of rain some weather people are throwing around.

On the way out of Roman Forest I stopped at the Shell station for a water bottle refill to carry me to the Stripes station on FM 1314 where I stopped for about 20 minutes. This was 30.5 miles into the ride at 1:45 pm. I bought some fruit punch Gatorade which tasted weak which is okay because sometimes full-strength can be difficult to handle. The two fruit & grain cereal bars I brought gave me enough energy for the 11+ miles to complete the ride. While I was at Stripes the “love bugs” made a nuisance of themselves flying around and landing on me and anything I had nearby. I will be glad when their “season” is done. The possible heavy rain might wash them away if the cars and trucks with the bugs splattered on the front don’t wipe them out first. When I pulled into the Stripes station a lady had some spray cleaner and paper towels cleaning the bugs off her car. Other people were not as industrious as she was.

Leaving Stripes I rode south through Briar Tree past the soon to be in session elementary and middle schools. Next week I will need to move up the time I ride by them to miss the traffic. Oakhurst doesn’t have any schools so nothing to worry about there but Kings Manor is the next place where I need to keep the school dismissal time in mind. I made my way through Kingwood and finished at 3:02 pm.

Thursday weather looks to bike ride friendly.

RideWithGPS.com map and metrics

Strava.com Ride Summary