More above normal temperatures today making for a good day to ride a bike. I put wheels down at 11:49 am on the first ride since Daylight Savings Time ended yesterday. Already the day seems to get dark too early. I rode the “New Caney – Tavola – Valley Ranch” route for a total of 33.38 miles. This boosts November riding to 91.8 miles, 25% of my 360 mile goal for the month. If the weather stays like this, which it won’t, I could almost reach my goal in a week and a half.

Wind blew strong during the ride helping me get to Tavola quickly with modest effort. Not so on the ride back to Kingwood. Weather during the bike ride.

I stopped in Woodridge Forest at the 5.4 mile mark and took these two photos to show the clouds and the wind wiping the flags from the south.

I never could get my overall average speed up to 14 mph. The segment from Tavola back to Kingwood mostly had a headwind driving the watts into the 200 to 300+ range and dropping the speed to 13 mph and below.

Below are graphs from today’s bike ride showing data from the PowerPod. Notice in the second graph with blue above and below the white line. Up the point I changed direction back to the south the blue mostly was below the white signifying a tailwind but when I turned back to the south the blue jumped to above the white line meaning a headwind. The headwind wasn’t as strong as Saturday’s ride but still a mean thing.

When I reached FM 1314 at the Stripes station some large rain drops started to fall and I took cover by the pumps. I figured the rain wouldn’t last long due to the size of the drops and the wind pushing the dark cloud to the north. After about 5 minutes I left the cover and went to the traffic light to wait before crossing FM 1314 and onto Old Sorters Road. The road was damp south of FM 1314 and a few drops hit me but they moved away or I rode away from them. One big drop landed on the Elemnt screen blurring the numbers for a couple of miles until it disappeared.

My timing was good to avoid school traffic at all three schools I passed. I finished the ride at 2:30 pm. Once inside I heard a few more rain drops on the skylight but not for long.

More weather like this for Tuesday and I plan on taking advantage of it.

SportTracks Bike Ride Summary