The Giro d’Italia was on a rest day but after all of the recent rain the fog was thick this morning so I waited until 10:02 AM to start today’s bike ride. I decided to ride my Lynskey Helix bike to see if that would keep me from getting rained on. That almost worked. I needed 331 miles to reach my goal for May of 750 miles so I looked for a northerly route that I haven’t rode in awhile. I remembered the Kingwood – FM1314 NW to McQueen Road route where the last time I rode April 11, 2022 was just over 41 miles. I changed some early streets in Kingwood and added a loop through Brooklyn Trails to beef up the mileage and biked 43.2 miles. A few more 40+ mile rides and I will narrow the deficit. I have a shorter window because of the Memorial Day and my grandson graduating from high school. I now need 287 miles to hit my goal. I’m at 19.1 days of riding 24.2 miles per day versus today being the 15th day of the month. Not biking yesterday due to rain didn’t cost me too many days ahead.

Watching the sky I saw blue with some clouds. As I turned onto Old Sorters Road with about 11 miles to go I thought this ride would be rain free but I didn’t say that out loud. Good thing! The left turn onto Briar Berry Lane was sunny but I start feeling and seeing rain. I hoped the sun meant it wouldn’t last long or get stronger and when I changed from Briar Berry Lane to another street it stopped. A sigh of relief. Changing bikes might have done the trick. After finishing at 1:19 PM I looked at the radar and rain was not too far away to the southwest. Overall weather: Start 76 degrees, humidity 96%, dew point 74.5, overcast, wind E 6 mph; Finish 84 degrees, humidity 73%, dew point 74.7, overcast, wind SE 9 mph. The humidity got me almost as wet as riding in the rain.

Ride history on this route shows an average distance of around 41 miles. I rode a number of different bikes on the 9 rides. Today was the longest distance.

I forgot about the Strava starred segment on FM 1314 heading NW but when it popped up on the Bolt computer screen I increased my effort. My quick glance at the screen led me to believe I was behind my personal record but looking again I was ahead by a few seconds. The effort improved my overall average speed to 14.8 mph with a little help from the tailwind. The segment crossed through two traffic lights but I managed to ride through on green until the last one at Cumberland Blvd. where one segment ended but the one continued to Old Houston Road. It looked like I stopped for the light before the end but Strava shows I completed it. There was another segment the opposite direction into the wind but I didn’t a result on it. The results from these segments: 2nd fastest time on 1314 – Stripes to Shell (9:32) and 2nd fastest time on Stripes-to_OldHoustonRd (22:06). Link to my AXS.SRAM.com ride report data. Link to the SportTracks ride summary.