After the rain shortened bike ride on Tuesday and not riding at all yesterday because of rain I needed to make up for the lost miles. Since its Thursday I looked for a route to the south and east and chose the Atascocita – Walden – Indian Shores Road one. I biked it twice before going 39 miles and 40 miles but today I changed the early streets in Kingwood to add a mile or two and ended up biking 42.4 miles. The week now totals 104.45 miles and May is up to 335.14 miles. I lost some of the cushion on my 750 mile goal for the month and now I’m at 13.85 days versus being the 11th day of the month. I need to bike 24.2 miles every day to reach my goal. I will look for another 40+ mile route for tomorrow’s ride.

I paused watching stage 6 of the Giro D’Italia with 49km to the finish and got ready to ride. The weather was a big improvement from the all day rain on yesterday. Riding my Cervelo Caledonia I punched the Bolt’s start button at 9:30 AM. I solved the soft tire problem on the bike after Tuesday’s ride when I switched to the Lynskey Helix by tightening the Presta valve core on the front tire. No air lost since I did that. The streets were dry but the greenbelt trails were wet so I minimized riding on them early in the ride. To add some distance I rode through Woodridge Forest in the first 4 to 5 miles. Near the end of the ride I took some different streets riding through Bear Branch Village in Kingwood.

Going south on FM 2100 to Indian Shores Road was the toughest part of the ride due to the headwind. Up to that point I didn’t work too hard against the wind. FM 2100 was open and the wind blew from the SE. That turned into a nice tailwind after I made the u-turn at Indian Shores Road to ride to Huffman. Biking over Lake Houston the wind can be difficult but the passing vehicles sucked the wind with them plus I was pedaling hard on the Strava segment which upped my overall average speed to 13.8 mph and held that until I got back on the north side of the river. I finished the ride at 12:47 PM. Weather conditions: Start 78 degrees, humidity 86%, dew point 73.5, overcast, wind SE 12 mph; Finish 84 degrees, humidity 71%, dew point 74, mostly cloudy, wind S 13 mph. Link to the AXS.SRAM.com ride report. Only 22 rear derailleur shifts today. 28.9 miles using the 35×13 gears.

I contested several Strava segments but only succeeded with the PR on KPHS Sprint (47s).