After an absence since last Thursday biking outdoors I was back on the road. Zwift riding is good but there is nothing like biking outside for me. It was a little chilly at the 10:47 AM start and I bundled up some with a long sleeve thermal jersey under a short sleeve jersey. No leg warmers though. After about 15 minutes of riding my body heat compensated for the north wind which brought some chill with it. I rode north on my Canyon Endurace CF 7 bike following my Kingwood – FM1485 – Kingwood route for the 18th time this year. The route might vary slightly from time to time. Today I rode through several Kingwood villages, Woodridge Forest, E Knox Street to US59, US59 to Community Drive and over to Loop 494. Loop 494 took me to New Caney where I saw the barriers were gone on the bridge over Caney Creek. Back to US59 I looped under the freeway to head back. The frontage road took me to Valley Ranch Parkway all the way to FM 1314. Briar Tree and Oakhurst streets to Northpark Drive were next. From there I rode on Kingwood Place to Kellington Drive and back to US59 to make the u-turn at Kingwood Drive. Through Kings Manor following a short section on Loop 494 and I was back in Kingwood finishing at 1:03 PM.

The days riding Zwift indoors might’ve rested my legs because they powered north into a 7 mph wind that increased to 13 mph by the end of the ride. I built up my average speed above 13 mph before leaving Woodridge Forest and increased it to 14 mph by the time I hit Community Drive. Making the u-turn at Caney Creek the tailwind assisted me most of the way back. For part of the way back my average speed reached 14.9 mph, higher than most rides. I hope that continues on the next ride.

I closing in on my November road mile goal of 360 miles with 271 miles (75% of the way). I rode 32.28 miles today. The other day I was looking at my YTD miles and rides and found some duplicates in Strava and SportTracks. They messed the year progressions in Strava, increasing the YTD miles. I don’t know what added the duplicates, maybe moving to a new phone and the Wahoo Element app was the cause. The correct YTD miles from SportTracks: 9071.97 combines road and Zwift. Stravini from Strava is not too far off with 9067.