The weather warmed up slightly for today’s bike ride. I rolled out at 11:37 am headed for the “Atascocita – Walden – Huffman” route. I wanted to ride at least 30 miles and ended up biking 32.83 miles. This improved November to 220.92 miles leaving 139 miles to reach my goal. I am now back on tracks to the goal with extra miles for this point in the month. I need to bike 12 miles a day to stay on target. Since I don’t ride every day when I do ride I need to make up for the missed days. I am about a day and a half ahead of schedule.

Weather during the bike ride: start 69 (64% humidity), mostly cloudy, wind SE 9 mph. Finish 71 (58% humidity), mostly cloudy, wind SE 9 mph. What a difference a few degrees make in wardrobe selection. I wore shorts, long sleeve jersey (not a thermal one), jacket and half finger gloves. I was comfortable except at the start riding along Northpark Drive with traffic going by and stirring up the wind. Also I was in the shade. After that I was okay.

When I reached Kingwood Town Center Park there were many booths and food trucks. Not sure what the celebration was but people were enjoying them. I took these photos.

From there the ride was the usual streets and traffic. I did see one cyclist after exiting Walden on the way back to FM 1960 and cross Lake Houston. We exchanged waves. No stop in Huffman. The wind wasn’t much of an issue today. After the recent cold weather I expected riding over Lake Houston might be chilly with the wind blowing off the cooler water but I didn’t notice any difference.

One thing I have noticed, the chain slapping on the chainstay when I slow pedaling or hit a bump. As I rode I went over the potential causes and decided when I got home I would see if I could fix this. Another observation is the WD40 chain lube is very messy. I will be glad when I get to 7,000 miles on the Canyon Endurace CF SLX bike and replace the chain. Cleaning the cassette and chainrings will be a dirty mess. Then I will switch to wax which is much cleaner.

Back to the chain slap. When I replaced the rear derailleur hanger the Ultegra R8000 derailleur has 2 “nub” that position around a “nub” on the hanger, so I thought. Wrong! Both of the derailleur nubs need to be on the left side of the hanger nub to position the derailleur properly. This explains the difficulty in mounting the rear wheel which now goes on much easier. At first I tired to fix the problem wearing my cycling sunglasses which are single vision. I couldn’t see close up but after going inside and getting my regular glasses I saw things better. I think the chain slap will not be a problem.

Sunday weather looks like this: High 65 F, 70% Precip. / 0.13 in, Rain. High around 65F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph. The Texans play at noon so biking will not be on the agenda. Monday looks iffy too with a change in the weather getting cooler.

SportTracks Bike Ride Summary