It was a little cooler than I prefer when I started today’s bike ride at 8:51 AM but my arm sleeves kept me comfortable until the sun got higher and warmed up. The route for today was “Atascocita – Huffman – Walden” but with a side trip on the way back. I rode my Canyon Endurace bike covering 34.7 miles by the time I finished at 11:37 AM. Those miles made this a 200+ mile week at 209.26 miles. October improved to 271.6 miles towards my 625 mile goal. That’s 43% of the way to the goal.

Nine times biking today’s route so far in 2021 with today being the longest distance. The side trip came after riding through Walden on the way back to Kingwood. I rode west on Farmingham Road to visit Bike Barn. I have a problem with my Lazer Sphere helmet discoloring and Lazer said the quickest warranty track was to go to a Shimano dealer and Bike Barn in Atascocita was handy. I stopped there, they looked at the helmet, told me what was required to submit a warranty claim. After I finished the ride I took the helmet back with the document they needed and they will submit a request on Monday. Much better than what CompetitiveCyclist.com told me. They said it was my fault for excessive UV light which is hard to avoid wearing the helmet outside in sunlight. You can see the discoloring in the video.

Indian Summer weather prevailed once the sun got high enough to move the temperature up from the 60’s. I was surprised how comfortable I felt at the start wearing shorts, short sleeve jersey and arm sleeves. I knew it would get warmer and didn’t want to overdress. Weather summary: start 67 (99% humidity, 67 dew point), partly cloudy, wind calm; finish 82 (68% humidity, 70 dew point), mostly cloudy, wind SW 5 mph. I didn’t experience much headwind thanks to the light breeze. The only time it was challenging was riding west onto the Lake Houston causeway until traffic passing beside me seemed to block it.

I saw numerous cyclists after turning left off of Atascocita Shores Drive heading east on FM 1960. Not as many as last week but it was great seeing fellow cyclists. You can see them in the video.

Various communities were holding neighborhood garage sales making some streets busier than usual for a Saturday morning. Garage sale customers get out early.

Strava alerted me that I gained Local Legend on Lake Houston Bridge – EB status. That surprises me because of the number of cyclists that ride this segment. But I ride it several times a week. I rode this segment 36 times in the last 90 days according to Strava. Nice.