A bike ride to the north for a change this week. My available time expanded so I chose the “Kingwood – SH 242 – Kingwood” route adding a few side streets to ride 40.01 miles. The ride started at 10:17 AM and I completed it at 1:45 PM.

Weather during the bike ride: start 90 (71% humidity, 79.6 dew point), mostly cloudy, wind S 9 mph. Finish 95 (55% humidity, 76.4 dew point), mostly cloudy, wind S 9 mph. With the heat and low humidity (for here anyway) this was a 3 water bottle ride. I stopped at the Shell station on Roman Forest Blvd., the Mobil station on FM 1485 in New Caney, and the Circle K store at FM 1314 and I-69/US59 Porter. The first two I was there just long enough to fill my bottle but a the Circle K I took a rest break. During the break I took this photo.

A gentle breeze cooled me down while I ate a blueberry crisp Clif bar and drank some blue PowerAde. to get to the finish.

According to Strava this was harder than your usual effort. Some physical data points:

• average heart rate: 131 bps (75%)
• maximum heart rate: 154 bps (88%)
• average power output: 94 watts
• maximum power output: 343 watts

I manage to get my average speed up to 14.1 mph but on the ride back to Kingwood it dropped to 13.8 mph because my legs weren’t energized to power into the headwind.

Saturday I need to ride 38+ miles to ride 200+ miles for the week. The weather looks good, I hope my legs are.

SportTracks Bike Ride Summary

2019 continues to lead all year in the chart but 2016 and 2018 are trailing by less than 100 miles.