When I got up this morning I saw a wind advisory from the National Weather Service. An excerpt:

The National Weather Service in Houston/Galveston has issued a Wind Advisory… which is in effect from 10 am this morning to 7 PM CDT this evening.
* Event… high southerly winds of between 15 to 25 mph… gusts to 35 mph.
* Timing… late morning through the afternoon hours.
* Impact… strong Crosswinds could impact high profile vehicles… blow around lightweight objects and cause isolated minor tree damage.

No mention about bicyclists but they should. Today my route goes north as I try to rotate them to avoid boredom and to see different scenes. With the high wind my guideline calls for riding into the wind at the start and with the wind on the return trip. I overruled that today thinking I could build up enough speed on the north bound route to offset the headwind on the south bound leg. With 90 degrees and scattered clouds the only tough side of the weather would be the wind.

The ride delayed some while I watched stage 18 of the Giro d’Italia. For a change the sprint winner was not Mark Cavendish. I never see the pro peloton riders eat bananas but today the overall leader, Joaquin Rodriguez (Katusha), had one in in his hand as he rode the stage. It was worth the wait but I figured I would pay a price if the wind kicked up early.

I left the house at 10:47 and it didn’t take long to notice the wind blowing from the southeast but with all of the trees in Kingwood I did not feel the full brunt. With the first 13 miles going north the wind would be my buddy. As I rode along when I got to Porter at FM1314 I could see the US flag over WhatABurger standing straight out and not too far away the flag above WalMart strained against the pole as well. On this stretch I pushed my speed up to 20+ mph to build up the extra time when I turned south at FM1485 in New Caney. This table shows the speeds before the turn at 13 miles and afterwards.

When I made the turn south in New Caney at first I thought maybe the wind died down some but it didn’t take long to prove that wrong. Within a mile the wind started whipping my loose CamelBak straps against my back like a jockey riding a race horse. The only problem was I did not have much reserve to overcome the headwind. I was able to keep my speed at 15 to 16 mph for most of the time until I got some relief when I turned into Valley Ranch. For about 1.5 miles I had a tailwind which ended once I moved to Valley Ranch Parkway and headed south. My speed took a hit right away because Valley Ranch Parkway has no trees at first to break the wind. I put my head down and kept pedaling.

By now I thought my overall average speed would fall below 15 mph but for the last 3 miles of the 30.28 mile route the wind came from my back or right rear quarter. I finished with a 15.0 mph average speed, riding 2:01:10 with only 4:52 time stopped. My max speed hit 21.7 mph and average cadence was 77.1 RPM. Now this week’s mileage totals 130.28, May totals 672.96 miles and YTD is 2608.63 miles.

I decided the SportTracks program will be my main data record with alternate data views at Garmin Connect and RideWithGPS.com.

5-24-2012 Bike Ride Data and Route Map