Holiday Crowded Greenway, Quintana Roo, Schwinn Le Tour Bikers, Keep Pace to Goal
I decided to go on a longer ride on Labor Day so I chose the Spring Creek Greenway. The last I rode the greenway was August 17th. @ days after that ride I was in the hospital but I don’t think that will happen this time. Riding my Lynskey R300 bike I started at 10:02 AM. I thought I could out the door before that. Today marks the 8th time to ride the Spring Creek Greenway this year. Part of my reason to go there was to make up for not biking yesterday. I biked 44.31 miles today which helped me keep ahead of the pace to reach my goal for September of 700 miles. Here is how I stand after today’s miles.
Except for yesterday each day exceeded my daily goal of 23.34 miles.
Fall like weather appears to be making its way here. While it still gets in the 90’s the overnight low is now in the 70’s and when I start riding it is in the 80’s rather than the 90’s. Today’s weather at the start and 1:57 PM finish: start 86 (85% humidity, 81.1 dew point), partly cloudy, wind calm. Finish 90 (63% humidity, 76.0 dew point), mostly cloudy, wind SE 8 mph. A few puddles dotted the greenway from last night’s rain and when I returned to Kingwood the streets showed signs of rain some time before my passing through. Once I finished the ride the sky darkened and thunder rumbled nearby.
As you see in the video the greenway was busy today probably from it being a holiday. The last time it was not very busy. Walkers and joggers were about equal to the number of bikers. Some of the bikers rode faster than I thought they should with the number of people out and the winding greenway.
Making the turn around about mile 14.25 on the greenway I headed back to US59 but stopped at John Pundt Park to rest and eat a Clif Bar. Not long after stopping another biker came under the shelter I was at. He had been away from riding for a few months and was getting back at it. We chatted for awhile and I remarked about his Quintana Roo bike. It had an Ironman 703 sticker on the top tube but he told me he didn’t get the sticker but the man he bought from rode in the Miami Ironman. I forgot to ask his name. A little later another biker stopped and joined us. He joined the conversation telling us he had passed out in June at one of the picnic benches in the shelter we were in hitting his head. Two women saw him and came to check on him. He should us where he hit his head on the bench. He started riding to lower his blood pressure after that and it is lower now. He rode a vintage Schwinn Le Tour II and told us he had 5 other Schwinn Le Tour’s at home. I told him about the BikeForums.net forum for vintage and classic bikes as he is looking for a rare green Le Tour.
We finished visiting and went our ways: Mr. Quintana Roo was going to I-45, Mr. Le Tour to Jesse Jones Park, and me back to US59 and Kingwood. It was a great conversation about bikes, riding, and life. I gave each one a Texbiker.net business card, maybe they will check it out. It was a great ride meeting the other two bikers.
As I rode back to US59 I saw the clouds starting to gather and sped up not wanting to get caught in any rain or stopped waiting for it to end.
I used my Bolt computer which appears to have regained its senses after last week’s going berserk failure. As a backup I used a FitBit Charge 4 with built in GPS thinking that would be better than my FitBit Versa 2 but it didn’t record all of the miles that the Bolt computer did for some reason. I looked at the GPS map the Charge 4 produced and it looks the same but only about 36 miles riding. I will cross the Charge 4 off the backup list. The Lezyne bike computer FedEx said it would deliver yesterday didn’t arrive so I will wait for it to show up.
Strava showed 4 new personal records on my ride and the ride was consistent with my usual efforts.
The PowerPod graphs look busy on today’s ride. I attribute that to the winding greenway, slowing for curves, walking people and oncoming bikers.
