Decisions, decisions! Do I wear the thermal long sleeve jersey or the short sleeve, long sleeve jersey combination? The reason I had to make this decision? The temperature as I got ready to ride at 11:21 AM was 72 which with the wind would be chilly if I only wore a short sleeve jersey. Thinking it would warm up while I was biking I chose the short/long sleeve jersey combination. I am a temperature wimp making this an important decision.

Riding to the north into the 7 mph wind emphasized the wind chill even with a nice blue sky and lots of sun. I was following the “New Caney – Tavola – Valley Ranch” route and fighting the wind I stayed in a lower gear than I normally choose: 34 x 14 instead of the 34 x 13. This allowed me to keep the cadence in the 90 rpm range and not use so much energy. Once I made the turn around back to the south I switched to the 34 x 13 combination.

This time when I rode through the southern edge of Tavola I stopped and took some pictures.

They were working on the landscape and some utilities with the St. Augustine grass sodded just around the sidewalk. Next trip I will photograph the street landscaping.

Leaving Tavola I rode south along I-69/US59 to Valley Ranch Parkway enjoying the nice tailwind. This helped me improve my overall average speed to 14.9 mph until I made it back to US59 near Kingwood Drive.

As I rode back to Kingwood I had a plan to get around the greenbelt trail replacement work along Kingwood Drive. On my previous ride in that area I forgot about a trail and bridge that was south of Kingwood Drive so today I took that course. I had to search for the trail access since I didn’t remember which street it was on. It turned out to near the Kingwood Pines Hospital. Once I found it the trail took me to the bridge but there was a nasty curve with 4 or 5″ drop in the concrete sections just before riding onto the bridge. If I had a problem making the turn and handling the drop down the hill down to the drainage bayou was waiting for me but I slowed down and navigated through. From there it was clear and clean to the finish on Kingwood streets. I will probably need to take this path for the next week until the work is finished.

I finished the ride at 1:56 PM with the temperature at 79 degrees and not feeling as chilly. The short/long sleeve jersey combination did good and I even perspired some.

More great weather on tap for Thursday and I plan on biking. Saturday the Heroes Ride in Conroe takes place. I think I will ride and the weather looks great.

Strava Best Segments for today

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