Last night I started thinking about a different route for today’s bike ride. One that came to mind went south and then east on FM 1960 to the railroad overpass about 2 miles into Liberty County and then back to Kingwood. I rode all of these streets and roads in the past but not this combination this year. August 20th of this year I rode FM 1960 east over the railroad to FM 686 and retraced my route back along FM 1960. Today after turning around on top of the railroad overpass heading west on FM 1960 I turned onto Huffman Eastgate Road. It has been a number of years since I took Huffman Eastgate all the way to FM 2100 rather turning right to go to May Community Center. The last time on Huffman Eastgate I encountered a dog and sprinted to escape him. No repeat of that today.

FM 1960 in Liberty County has chip seal shoulders. I wondered how the ride would be on my Lynskey R300 since I changed to 700x32mm tires with 80 psi. The ride on the chip seal was not too harsh, less jarring than on my Canyon Endurace with 700x28mm tires at 85 psi.

Searching my past rides in SportTracks I couldn’t find a route matching today so I created a new one “Kingwood to FM1960 Railroad Overpass – Back”. As I rolled out at 11:23 AM on my Lynskey R300 bike I guessed the ride would be 34 to 35 miles but it turned out to be 39.32 miles. That pushed me forward towards my monthly goal 3 days worth.

With the good outdoor riding weather my Zwift goal is being ignored. That probably will change later in November. The blue sky gained numerous clouds today but it warmed up. My kit: shorts, long sleeve jersey, and a short sleeve jersey. A few times when the sun hid behind some clouds I felt a chill but overall it was a good choice. Weather: start 79 (63% humidity, 64.9 dew point), partly cloudy, wind SE 10 mph; finish 80 (58% humidity, 63.6 dew point), partly cloudy, wind S 8 mph. The humidity and dew point continued to climb higher pushing the muggy feeling and temperature up. The wind treated me okay today with minimal headwinds. Riding mostly east and west positioned the wind crossing my path.

The experiment with the Koozie on the Hero 7 Silver camera came to an end. After taking 2 clips the camera wouldn’t turn on until I removed the Koozie. Back to the sock to muffle the wind noise. The replacement mic adapter should arrive early next week. I neck muscles will appreciate not holding up the extra weight on my helmet. By the 2:20 PM finish my neck felt strained.

Strava evaluated the ride as harder than my usual efforts while Golden Cheetah summary data showed only 47% of the ride time my power was in zones 3 through 7. Lap 6 average power was 120 watts slightly above lap 5’s 118 watts. Overall average speed topped out at 14.0 mph, below yesterday’s. Lap 4’s 15.4 mph average speed was the best of 8 laps.

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