Before heading out on today’s bike ride I watched the Il Lombardia race on EuroSport from Italy. This is the final World Tour race of the season. For some reason the only video was without commentators but with the sounds of the people and whatever was happening. One rider took a corner too fast, went over the guardrail, down a hill with his bike flipping in the air. It looked very bad. Later I read that he was okay and went to the hospital. What a way to end the season!!

My bike ride was no where as dramatic as that. Bicycling the “Kingwood – SH 242 – Kingwood” route to the north the 8 mph wind tried to slow me down but I pedaled hard and made it to the turn around at SH 242. The sky was overcast and some of the pavement damp from either the high humidity (86%) or maybe an earlier shower. At the 10:56 AM start the temperature was 76 which made me wonder how long I will be wearing short sleeve jerseys on ride. Supposedly a cool front will arrive the middle of next week dropping the highs from the 80’s to the 70’s. By the time I finished (1:30 PM) it was 87 degrees with 78% humidity making for a muggy ride. My jersey was clinging to me at the end from all of the sweat.

I made a quick stop at the New Caney Mobil station for ice and water to get me home. While I was there a truck pulled up to deliver ice. I chatted with the driver and watched how they had a slick way to unload the ice bags and put them in the storage boxes outside the store. One man was inside the truck throwing the ice bags to rear of the truck where a slick piece of cardboard or paneling was. As the bag hit the cardboard it slid into the hands of the man on the sidewalk who quickly threw it into the storage box. It only took a few minutes to empty a pallet into the two storage boxes.

Leaving the Mobil station I rode south and thanks to the 8 mph wind I continued using the higher gear and kept a 18 to 20 mph pace. This helped me boost my overall average speed to 15.0 mph and keep it there until I started back into Kingwood.

I will take tomorrow off to watch the Houston Astros play the Boston Red Sox in game 3 of the ALDS. The Astros are up 2 games to none.

Strava Ride Summary (click on the image to got to Strava.com)