With one week left in September the pressure to reach my goal drove my selection of today’s route; “SR242 – Old Houston Rd – FM1314”. I biked 45.31 miles bringing me within 88 miles of the 700 mile goal. This seems to be close but with the unpredictable weather the margin of error remains.

Rolling out at 11:05 am was a little later than I planned. The delay stemmed from a computer problem where a program would not open due to something that Windows 10 did in an update. Tracking down the solution and then getting the problem fixed took too long. By then the weather warmed up some from the 69 degrees I saw when I got up. It feels like fall is not too far away. Weather during the bike ride: start 85 (66% humidity), a few clouds, wind W 5 mph. Finish 87 (61% humidity), partly cloudy, wind S 7 mph. With the temperature below 90 degrees I was comfortable only stopping once during a ride this long and time of the day. I stopped at the Shell station at FM 1485 and SH 242 long enough to refill my water bottle but the rest stop was later at the Circle K/Valero station on FM 1314 at Sorters Road. The ride summary at the Circle K.

Sitting on a bag of deer corn outside the store I ate a Clif Bar, drank cold water and check emails. This took about 20 minutes and after refilling the water bottle for the 12 miles to the finish I set out.

Wind wasn’t much of an issue on FM 1314 riding SE but when I turned onto Old Sorters Road I pedaled harder to overcome the headwind. A couple of places are out in the open exposing me to the light wind but I maintained my overall average speed at 14.7 mph all the way back into Kingwood until the 41 mile mark when the starting and stopping slowed me down. I finished the bike ride at 2:37 pm in front of the schools dismissal times.

The weather changes on Tuesday with the chance of rain returning but not high enough to interfere with biking, I hope.

SportTracks Bike Ride Summary