In my quest for some route variety I dusted off a route that I have not rode since June 13th, 2017. While most of the roads are familiar ones today I biked about 4 miles into Liberty County on what I call the “FM1960 to FM686 – Back” route covering 42.4 miles, my second day in a row of 42 miles. Back in 2017 I biked this route 3 times but since then I held off for 2 reasons which you can hear and see in the video. Today’s mileage is the average distance for this route.

Not much change in the weather from yesterday’s bike ride. I started the ride today at 10:00 AM and finished at 1:21 PM. Lots of sun warmed me up as I biked. Arm sleeves and sunscreen tried to keep it at bay but long stretches on FM 1960 did not include any shade for cooling. Wind helped me some on the way to FM 686 and fought me on the way back to Atascocita Shores Drive, a long almost 10 miles long. Weather: start 92 (73% humidity, 82.2 dew point), partly cloudy, wind SW 7 mph. Finish 96 (58% humidity, 78,9 dew point), partly cloudy, wind calm. Salt stains on my shorts as the ride progressed verified the heat. Humidity was about normal for southeast Texas this time of the year. With a little over a month of summer left the forecast for the next week to 10 days repeats today most days.

Did I make any progress on my monthly goal? Including today’s bike ride I biked 336.21 miles in August or 30.56 miles per day versus the 25.8 miles per day to hit the 800 mile goal. I am 4.76 miles ahead per day and 52.41 miles ahead of 25.8 miles per day pace for 800 miles. Based on the 30.56 miles per day my total for August would be 947 miles, below where I was on Saturday. The Sunday rest day set me back some but still exceeding my goal. Year to date mileage: 5,601 road miles and 542 Zwift miles for a total of 6,143 miles.

Bike ride data highlights today:

• average heart rate 134 bpm
• max heart rate 161 bpm
• average power 102 watts
• max power 449 watts
• elapsed time 3:20:55

• 

•