As I mentioned earlier this week today’s bike ride started at the Livingston High School in Livingston, TX. Rather than get up early and drive to Livingston about 52 miles to the north of Kingwood I drove there on Friday late afternoon and stayed at the La Quinta Inn. This morning after I got up and started getting dressed I realized that I left my heart rate monitor at home so no data during the ride. When I left home I thought I missed something but the heart rate monitor hid under my computer desk attached to the computer charging from Friday’s ride.

After eating breakfast I drove the ride start at the high school arriving about 7:20 AM. I went to the registration area and picked up my packet and walked back to the Jeep. Then I walked around and passed out all of the Texbiker.net business cards I brought with me. I asked the lady at the registration table how many bikers they expected and she said over 100 plus whoever registered before the ride started.

The weather was perfect with a nice blue sky as the sun got taller over the horizon. Earlier when I got dressed I noticed my arm sleeves sagged after I put them on and I think the elastic wore out from the sun and washing after each ride. But they came in handy at the beginning because the temperature was a little cool. Weather while I biked: start 68, fair, wind NW 3 mph. Finish 84 (65% humidity, 71 dew point), fair, wind SE 4 mph. The light wind helped as I rode through Livingston before we exited to the south on SH 146. The rest of the ride the wind behaved.

The ride started at 8:04 and I finished at 11:19 AM putting my average speed at 14.9 mph. Elevation gain came in at 863 feet, much more than a month of biking around Kingwood. With today’s 44.56 miles my week totals 222.11 miles and October totals 176.95 miles, not quite 25% of my 700 mile goal. This is the second week in a row at 200+ miles.

The includes some hills with the biggest one early in the ride going south on SH 146. After that the road rolled but steeply. Road surface on SH 146 was rough until about 6 or 7 miles then became smooth. At one house on SH 146 ahead of me I saw three dogs run out to a biker in front of me but by the time I got there someone from the house called them back and they stayed as I rode by. The only dog threat during the ride.

The video gives more details about the ride. The worst segment of the ride came as we transitioned from FM 2457 to US 190 east. The shoulder was like a washboard on steroids. This lasted from that point until turning right onto FM 350 about 1/2 mile from the finish. My teeth and arms vibrated badly and I stood on the pedals a lot..

Editing the video took forever because my computer was slow and Firefox took up a lot of memory. One clip I needed to split and Adobe Premier Elements would not let me split it. I ended up using Windows 10 Photos app which worked perfectly.

After finishing the ride I sat at a table with some other bikers who were talking about places to ride around Conroe and The Woodlands. One man told them how to look at the routes the Conroe Triathlete Club uses and I volunteered some ideas. Hopefully that helps them.

Sunday will be a rest day.

Relive ‘Polk County Spirit Ride’