I missed my planned start time by 5 minutes with wheels down at 7:35 am.Riding this early the sun shined through the trees making for a beautiful setting. I messed up though by not wearing my wrist bands because the humidity was high and the sweat flowed freely.

Weather during the bike ride: start 75 (99% humidity), a few clouds, wind calm. Finish 89 (62% humidity), mostly cloudy, wind 5 mph.

The planned route was “Atascocita – Walden – Huffman” but I altered this to “Kingwood to Ramsey Road – Huffman” when I realized the usual cyclists were running later than I expected. I first realized this might be the case at the right turn onto Fairlake Drive with a man in a Ride Marshal jersey putting out a route direction sign for the Tour de Cure. I wasn’t aware of this ride (shame on me) and as I turned back to talk to him I asked when the ride start (7:30 am) and where (Bike Barn Atascocita). This explained why no other cyclists showed up yet. I think the route went south on W. Lake Houston Parkway through Summerwood, Crosby and then the back roads from Crosby to Atascocita.

Before I knew this I thought of stopping at the church on Fairlake Drive and take photos of bikers as they passed but now I rode on to Old Atascocita Road where I saw the first bikers coming from the east. The photos I took along Old Atascocita Road at several stops.

I missed one large group and there were probably others after I left their route to ride to Huffman. Later I saw a couple of cyclists cross FM 1960 from Fairlake Drive to head west but they were about half a mile in front of me.

At the turn around on Ramsey Road a lone man with an awning and a table full of snacks and drinks waited for riders to stop but I don’t think anyone did. I rode a short distance north on Ramsey Road and looped back to return to FM 2100. I had worked my overall average speed up to 14.4 mph but keeping it there riding west on Old Atascocita Road was harder than the east bound leg. I saw several cyclists riding east and they probably were the usual Saturday morning crew not in the Tour de Cure because of the different flow of riders.

As I rode to FM 2100 I noticed how wet my gloves were from perspiration. They were soaked and when I got to the Huffman Chevron I took them off. I was going to use the water hose by the pumps but the handle was covered with pipe insulation so I dipped my hands in the windshield water bucket and then wrung out the water. I laid them on the milk crates to dry while I went inside to get ice and water. They felt drier. I was only there a few minutes and left to finish the last 11+ miles of the ride.

Again biking to the west the wind provided more resistance than the east bound part of the ride but I managed to keep my overall average speed at 14.4 mph. The right hand turn onto Atascocita Shores Drive shifted the wind some and it wasn’t as hard but the street is rough which makes it hard to maintain speed. At the first stop sign a crew is replacing several panels of the street with white marks leading me to believe there is more planned. Maybe they will take care of all of the roughness over time.

On W Lake Houston Parkway I followed it north all the way to Kingwood Drive rather than take the loop through Kingwood Greens. Traffic wasn’t too heavy and I moved to the side streets to finish the ride at 10:24 am. This is earlier than I start many rides. Now to watch the TdF.

SportTracks Bike Ride Summary