I didn’t take any photos during today’s bike ride but if I could take one of the heat that’s the one I should’ve taken. The weather during the bike ride: start 91 (53% humidity), partly cloudy, wind S 12 mph, gusts 21 mph. Finish 95 (48% humidity) partly cloudy, wind S 7 mph, gusts 20 mph. When I got home one of my home weather stations said the heat index was 111 while the other one was at 104. Either way it was a hot day for biking.

The later start (11:32 am) pushed me into the heat of the day while I rode the “Atascocita – Walden – Huffman) route for 34.23 miles. This puts June at 379.99 miles and the week at 78.39 miles. The reason for the late start was a trip to Lowes for parts to finish my sprinkler system repairs. More on that shortly. I didn’t expect any other cyclists along the route and that was the case. I did need to navigate heavy traffic at Kingwood High School on the way to Atascocita. Not sure why everyone was leaving the high school. Maybe summer school let out?

The first stop for ice and water was at the Chevron on the west side of Lake Houston on FM 1960 at Atascocita Shores. That carried me to Huffman where the second stop at the Chevron was longer for a rest break of 20 minutes or so. The Dean Foods milk crates were waiting for me and the Greensheet newspaper soaked up some of the wetness of my bike shorts while I cooled off drink ice water while I checked my emails. On the way to Huffman I saw a crew from the Harris County Flood Control District installing water flow measurement equipment on the north side of the causeway close to the east end. I passed them when I rode west from Huffman still working. A hot job with no shade.

During the bike ride I went over the things I needed to do to fix our lawn sprinkler system. I started working on it after yesterday’s bike ride when it was a little cooler. First I made a trip to Lowes to gather what I thought I needed. As I started to repair zones and turning the water on and off many times I saw a place washed out from a leaking pipe. Digging down and baling out the water in the hole I saw a gash in the pipe which explained why several sprinkler head didn’t have much pressure and sprayed very little. Since I didn’t have the parts to repair the gash I started repairing the heads that were broken along the driveway but I ran out of daylight and energy. Back at it today when the sun goes down some with the repair parts and three sprinkler heads left to replace. Hopefully this gets the system up and running. I have a new control unit that I can manage from my phone  so that cut down the running back and forth to the garage to test the system yesterday.

No traffic when I crossed Kingwood Drive on the way back home and I finished the ride at 2:31 pm. Resting now before tackling the yard. It needs watering since we haven’t had any rain this month so far. None on Wednesday so I plan on biking. Sunday looks like rain will arrive and might hang around for a couple of days.

SportTracks Bike Ride Summary