For the second Saturday in a row I rode in the rain at the end of the ride. Today the rain began as I left my rest stop at the Valero station on FM1314 west of Porter. A friend offered to drive me home but I decided to bike home since the rain was not hard and there was no lightning. While I was resting at the Valero station I used my new LG Optimus V smartphone to check the weather ( I still need to work on typing on the touch screen) and I could see that most of the rain was to the east and north of where I was headed. Earlier as I was riding I could the clouds getting to darker to the east and I was wondering if I could get home before the rain fell. I was setting a good pace at 18 mph or more which was easier since the temperature was in the low 80’s and the wind was not that strong, probably around 5 mph.

Within a tenth of a mile from the start of the ride I met two bikers headed the opposite direction which was surprising. I do not generally encounter bikers on my street. Later in the ride at the 27 mile mark I met another two riders as they headed north on FM3083 and then one more on the back road from FM3083 to FM1314. My purpose of today’s route was to check the road surface on FM314 to see if the chip’n seal had been replaced by smooth asphalt. It has been and the road was very smooth for the 5 miles to SR242 where the new construction took over.

There was one dog sprint on FM1485 with a dog I had previously sprinted with. Fortunately I was in the north bound lane/shoulder and the dog was in the grass on the south bound lane. He made no effort to come across the road. He was fast though and ran along with me for about two or three tenths of a mile.

Today’s ride was 56.62 miles long and my average speed was 15.8 mph. I managed a max speed of 24.9 mph and the average cadence was 81.3 RPM. July miles stand at 336.4, the week’s miles are 125.66 and year to date is 3175.49.

7-16-2011 Bike Ride Data and Route Map

7-16-2011 Home Weather Finish

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