After yesterday’s flat tire drama I rode north today thinking riding there would take me away from the scene of the crime. But, then I remembered Friday’s flat tire happened biking north. No Escaping the threat of a flat tire. A couple of years ago I did some napkin math figuring the probability of getting a flat tire on a road with a shoulder and it was very small. That gave me some confidence that today’s bike ride would be flat free. And it was!

I rolled away at 8:59 AM on a different bike from yesterday, my Cervelo Caledonia. The route went north to Tavola and back to Kingwood. I call this the New Caney – Tavola – Valley Ranch route. This was a good choice since I wanted to bike at least 35 miles and this route averages over 36 miles for the eight 2023 bike rides so far. Today I rode 37.36 miles, just a little less than the last ride on August 1st. It was an uneventful bike ride. I stopped at TX 99 and Valley Ranch Parkway under the overpass to rest and eat a cereal bar. Sitting in the shade with the wind blowing through made it difficult to get back on the Cervelo but I did it.

Adding the dead cat muff to the Rode Wireless ME mic on the GoPro remove the wind noise. I think the sound on this video is one of the better ones.

Some change in the weather due to the tropical storm moving into south Texas. The wind picked up making it hard riding to Tavola. I expected some help on the way back to Kingwood from the wind and at times I got it but the crosswind out in the open required some hard pedaling too. The temperature was a couple of degrees lower than yesterday when I finished at 12:20 PM, about an hour 20 minutes earlier than yesterday. Overall weather for the bike ride: Start 85 degrees, 79% humidity, dew point 77.4, mostly cloudy, wind NE 14 mph; Finish 94 degrees, 58% humidity, dew point 76.5, mostly cloudy, wind E 18 mph gusts 24 mph.