No bike race to watch this morning so I was able to start today’s bike ride at 10:23 AM, a little earlier than normal. Being Monday I chose a route riding to the north, “New Caney – Tavola – Valley Ranch”. Before eating breakfast I read the weather email from Space City Weather describing the chance of rain this morning and this afternoon. I looked at the positive side of the rain and thought I could finish the ride before the rain arrive. I spun the rain wheel of fortune. More below and in the video on how that turned out. I rode my Cervelo Caledonia bike on the 4th ride on this route in 2022.

Today’s ride had the highest average speed but the shortest distance even though I changed the streets slightly. I rode on a new street in Tavola, Argosta Drive, to Roman Forest Blvd. east of my usual Tavola exit. Three rides on my Cervelo and one on my Lynskey R300 bikes.

I decided to wear some new kit items today: the Primal Team Red short sleeve jersey and Bellwether Coldflash Sun Sleeves. These would get to taste the changing weather.

Back to the weather. I thought the rain was far enough to the north to not be a problem but as you can see in the video when I neared the turn into Tavola I saw rain ahead on US59/I-69. I hoped by the time I rode to Roman Forest Blvd. it would have moved on and it did but the streets were wet. At US59 I headed south on the wet road but at the Caney Creek bridge the road dried and I thought the ride back to Kingwood would be dry. And it was until Briar Berry Lane when the rain came down and I got soaked. No place to pull into until West Hammond Drive and Timber Lane where I took refuge at a company’s front porch for about 10 minutes. The rain let up to just sprinkling so I resumed the ride on wet streets through Oakhurst, Kings Manor, and Kingwood. In the last mile I saw a dark cloud north of where I finished at 1:11 PM. The Cervelo experienced it’s first rain ride so that is out of the way. I parked the bike at the back door long enough to take a couple of things inside and came back out to wash it. In a matter of a few minutes the wind picked up and the temperature dropped about 8 degrees. As I washed the Cervelo I felt rain and hurried to rinse it off. I wiped off the excess water on the bike and cleaned the mud from my shoes. Back inside I saw the temperature down another 2 degrees. If the ride lasted any longer I would’ve got wet again and chilled. Weather conditions: start 81 (humidity 77%, dew point 73), mostly cloudy, wind DE 9 mph; finish 76 (humidity 81%, dew point 70), mostly cloudy, wind S 12 mph. Rode in the rain. What the radar looked like at the start and finish.

A highlight from the ride: a Strava Local Legend on KPHS Sprint after 25 efforts in the last 90 days.