Saturday motivates me to get the bike ride started earlier than the rest of the week. Today the bike ride started at 7:55 AM as I and the Canyon Endurace CF SLX bike began the “Atascocita – Huffman – Walden” route. This route and time positions me to see other cyclists. Most of them go the opposite direction than me as I ride to the east while they ride west. East of FM 2100 I make the u-turn to return to Kingwood and no longer see “serious” cyclists. Today’s bike ride covered 32.48 miles boosting my week total to 221.95 miles, my second week in a row of 200+ miles. This also marks the 11th time riding this route in 2020. For July I biked 380.97 miles, 48% of my 800 mile goal. A summary of the 11 rides on this route.

So far in July I biked every day but tomorrow I will take a rest day. I expect a heat advisory with the temperature potentially hitting 100 or higher. I get home from church as the hottest part of the day rolls in so it is a good day to rest. A summary of the week’s bike rides.

My legs were not their strongest today signaling another reason to take a rest day. As I biked I thought of the pro cyclists during the long stage races taking a rest day after 7 or 8 days of racing. While I am not their level or distance per day the body does need to recover at some point.

Finishing today at 10:25 AM was before the start time of other days. This put me ahead of the heat today. Weather at the start and finish of the bike ride: start 82 (93% humidity, 79.5 dew point), mostly cloudy, wind SW 5 mph. Finish 88 (76% humidity, 795. dew point), mostly cloudy, wind SW 7 mph. While the wind was not too bad on the return to Kingwood my legs didn’t have any reserve power to put out and my average speed suffered. Strava said my bike ride was consistent with my usual efforts.