What’s A Dew Point? Bike Ride Coolness in a Hot June
During the night a front passed through southeast Texas. According to Space City Weather the front brought a low dew point while not keeping the temperature from going into the 90’s it felt cooler with low humidity. They showed just 5 times during the months of June, July, and August have we had dew points this low since 1980. I could tell the difference as I started today’s bike ride at 11:03 AM. I started yesterday’s ride earlier with 90 degrees but with today’s later start it was 82. To be careful I opted to use the CamelBak for water keeping it cool with plenty of ice. When I finished at 1:44 PM and emptied the CamelBak some ice still remained. Cold water for the whole 34.75 mile ride was good. Weather during the bike ride: start 83 (44% humidity, 58.6 dew point), mostly cloudy, wind N 13 mph. Finish 89 (34% humidity, 57.1 dew point), partly cloudy, wind NE 8 mph.
The ride to the north did not start easy. first I had an issue with the CamelBak leaking ice water down the back of my shorts, not the way it should be (watch the video for the explanation). Then there was the 13 mph northerly wind I would fight getting to Tavola. The “New Caney – Tavola – Valley Ranch” route goes north for about 16 miles before it turns west and then south. I hoped the ride south would be as easy as the ride north was hard. Pointing the Canyon Endurace south I could tell the wind was at my back but it didn’t push as hard as the headwind tried to slow me down. Still I built my average speed up to 14.3 mph during the ride back to Kingwood.
GoPro performance today included no freezes. Maybe my heat theory has merit since it was cooler today. I am still working on the mic cable dangling from my helmet to the GoPro mic adapter. Today wind the wind and my movement the cable kept brushing my knee with the Velcro wrap I put around the extra mic wire. After the ride I moved the Velcro higher, maybe that will help.
In 2020 I biked today’s route 12 times, 9 times on the Canyon Endurace and 3 times on the Lynskey R300.
MY year to date mileage continues on a record pace compared to the previous years back to 2011.
Strava noted that today’s ride was consistent with my usual efforts.