I had to wait for the Milan – San Remo road race to finish before getting ready for today’s ride. They were in the saddle over 7 hours starting in the rain. No such weather here when I rolled out at l12:19 pm on the “Atascocita – Walden – Huffman Extended” route. I chose this one for a little variety and to get an extra mile or two to set up the week to finish with 200+ miles. I biked 36.09 miles putting the week’s total at 181.59 miles. March is up to 476.49 miles leaving 108.5 miles to reach my March goal. With Sunday’s weather looking like today but slightly warmer I hope to bike enough miles to get to 200+ miles for the week.

The weather for today’s bike ride: start 78 (82% humidity), mostly cloudy. Finish 83 (72% humidity), mostly cloudy, wind S 10 mph.

No need to bundle up like earlier in the week. I selected shorts, long sleeve jersey with a short sleeve jersey over top. I was comfortable though towards the end of the ride a bit too warm.

Other cyclists must’ve went earlier than I did since I didn’t see anyone.

Wind wasn’t much of an issue today so my average power and heart rate were lower.

The surprise of the bike ride was when I approached the E. Lake Houston Parkway intersection at FM 1960. Over to my left in the strip center entrance three vehicles were sitting with flashers on. I couldn’t see around them until I got passed the pickup truck closest to the road. three people were gathered in the grass beside the deep ditch with one of the gesturing a lot. That was when I noticed a gold car down in the ditch. If I hadn’t been sitting on my bike I probably wouldn’t have been able to see the car because the ditch is deep. No skid marks that I could see so I wasn’t sure how the car got there. I am guessing the man gesturing was the driver explaining what happened to the other people. I am not sure how they will get the car out of the ditch with steep sides and concrete culverts on each end. I should have taken a picture. Other than that the bike ride was normal.

Riding on from the excitement at the intersection I was thinking about the free ice cream cone Dairy Queen will give on the first day of spring Tuesday. The Dairy Queen is about 100 feet from where the car was in the ditch. I will try to bike that direction on Tuesday. With the thought of ice cream I made my way to the end of the ride stopping at 2:55 pm.

SportTracks Bike Ride Summary (click on the image to see more)