Going north on today’s bike ride into a light headwind I hoped it would turn into a tailwind when I made the loop through Tavola and headed south. I started late at 10:47 AM after working on some chores and being slow. My Canyon Endurace bike carried me 34.69 miles over my “New Caney – Tavola – Valley Ranch” route. The fall like weather still hung around even though I started over an hour later than yesterday. After three biking days so far this week my total stands at 113.6 miles. A 200 mile week looks doable. I’m 248.58 miles into my 700 mile goal for September. Year to date 2021 leads 2020 by 233 miles at 7,022 miles in 2021. Apparently I ride today’s route a lot with this the 12th time in 2021. The distance today was slightly less than average because I left out some streets at the beginning in Kingwood. I biked on new streets (new to me) in Tavola. My Wahoo Bolt computer map page helped me find my way on those new streets. I have used that feature several times when I bike on unfamiliar roads.

Low humidity and dew point kept the fall feeling in the air. According to the forecast those will rise enough to cancel the fall feeling. Weather summary for the bike ride: start 85 (54% humidity, 66 dew point), a few clouds, wind N 4 mph; finish 89 (43% humidity, 63 dew point), partly cloudy, wind NE 8 mph. It was 67 degrees when I got up this morning, cooler than Tuesday by 2 degrees.

Thanks to the tailwind on the ride back to Kingwood my overall average speed improved to 14.2 mph. I held that until I reached Woodland Grove Drive in Kingwood when I slowed to move to residential streets. I finished the ride at 1:25 PM. I wanted to finish earlier to watch the Astros game but I caught up once I was home. The Astros lost though.

Lately I’ve changed my thinking on power zone outputs. Now I see keeping the power lower while still riding at the speed I want is beneficial rather than looking at the power percentage in zones 3 to 7. The Golden Cheetah ride summary shows 64% of the riding time in zones 1 and 2 and the balance in zones 3 to 7. I kept my average speed steady after looping through Tavola yet did not need to increase my power much.