Biking in February in southeast Texas requires patience – February 16th Bike Ride
Biking in February in southeast Texas requires patience. The weather seems to go against the forecast almost every day. Yesterday started with fog, moved to rain and ended with more fog. Today if I believed the forecast by afternoon the clouds would thin out and sunshine would appear. About the only part of the forecast that came rue was the afternoon part. The sun never arrived thanks to the overcast sky. When I started the ride the weather station showed a double 68 for the temperature and humidity. I decided to wear leg warmers because when I started to get ready the temperature stood at 69 degrees so the trend looked downward. I figured I would rather be too warm than too cool. The rest of my apparel include a windbreaker, long sleeve jersey, bike shorts and half finger gloves. With this outfit I rode in comfort not counting the physical effort.
With the 8.1 mph wind from the north I chose the north bound route to bike into the wind at the first part of the ride. Since the wind was not that strong I did not have any real resistance but I can tell the legs need a more consistent workout. The first 5 mile split recorded a 12.9 mph average speed. I got this mainly because I followed another biker for about a mile at a very low speed and I could not pass him due to being on the bike path. By the time I got to the next split I was over 3 minutes behind a 15+ mph average speed. I did make up some of the lost time to get the final average speed up to 14.9 mph over the 25.75 mile route. Max speed was 20.8 mph and average cadence was 80.0 RPM just .5 RPM below Tuesday’s ride. February miles now total 168.08 and YTD miles reached 435.33.
The coming weekend includes several area rides but the weather forecast of 70% rain and a high of 61 degrees will keep me indoors. Remember my opening line in this post?
2-16-2012 Bike Ride Data and Route Map
2-16-2012 Home Weather Station End