Today’s ride marks the end of a three day rest, some of it on purpose and some weather related. Monday rain ruled the day so no biking then. Sunday I really need a rest day after battling the wind on Saturday and a church meeting helped with the decision. Tuesday I did chores, grocery shopped, church meeting and went to the Jesse Jones Park Photo Club with my wife, niece and her friend. The photo club meets each month and this might help me take some decent pictures in the future.

Last night when I went to close up the garage I walked by my bike and as I normally do I squeezed both tires. The front tire felt solid but the rear tire felt soft. Since I planned to bike today I am glad I discovered this last night. I took the tire off the bike and pulled the tube out after inspecting the tire circumference for things sticking out and not finding anything. I pumped the tube up and could feel some air blowing on my leg from a hole in the tube. Locating the hole I then felt on the inside of the tire near where the tube’s hole would be and a 1/4″ long piece of wire protruded into the tube area. I am not sure where I picked this up but the wire must’ve worn off on the outside of the tire leaving the piece inside. Maybe I should mount a magnet on my front tire near the ground like the street sweeper to try and catch this stuff. The Continental GatorSkin tires don’t protect against wire but no cuts show on the outer tread yet. With tube patched the bike was ready for the road. This morning early I checked the rear tire and the patch did the trick.

The weather started out a little chilly this morning when I got up at 56 degrees. I delayed the start to 12:04 to give the temperature time to get up to 74 and it settled at 82 when I finished at 2:25. The depth of the clear blue sky escaped description so this picture from my cellphone hopefully captures the contrasting colors.

Blue Sky at New Caney Chevron

The sky seems to go on forever. I like the contrast between the sky and the Chevron gas cover band. The calm wind meant heading south I could hit some good speed and 23.1 mph max speed helped get my average speed up to 15.7 mph. The 35% humidity meant perspiration did not last long so I felt cool except when I stopped in the sun for traffic lights. Maybe this weather will hold over for tomorrow. This weekend a cool front will greet the BP MS150 bikers on their trip to Austin.

I altered the route slightly going north on Loop 494 at Community Drive. 21 years ago I used to live east of Loop 494 in that area and the road did not include shoulders. Back then I rode as little as possible on Loop 494 but a few years ago shoulders were added and the road surface improved so I tried it out to widen the route on the map so the GPS in my Garmin Edge would not overlap with the return leg. You can see the triangle at the top of the route. The route ended up at 32.93 miles, almost the the 33 I hoped for.

Other ride numbers:

• 82.7 RPM average cadence
• 2:06:06 riding time
• 375.75 miles in April (I average 505.06 miles for April in the past)
• 1595.11 miles YTD
• Garmin Connect data link

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4-18-2012 Home Weather Station End