My timing and route selection today was not the greatest. I left heading south at 10:01 AM which I figured would be early enough to get past Kingwood High school before they let out for the last day of school. I got there as every parent and student with a car exited the school. Between the cars and teenagers walking on the sidewalk along Kingwood Drive it took me about 10 minutes it seemed to go 1/2 mile. Once I got past the crowd I moved right along.

Thanks to the small cool front and the rain passing through yesterday the sky turned clear blue and the temperature range fell to 78 (start), 89 (finish) and the humidity dropped to 33% when I finished. Moving through the air felt very pleasant and sweat almost evaporated as fast as it formed. A light variable wind escorted me along the 31.4 mile route to Huffman and back.

Average speed clocked in at 15.5 mph but with the traffic at the high school my first 5 mile leg took 23 minutes putting me behind by 3 minutes to get to the 15 mph average. I did manage a 25.3 mph top speed but my average cadence only made it to 77.7 RPM.

When I got to the Huffman Chevron station it felt so good sitting under the fuel canopy with the light breeze I slowly drank my Diet Pepsi and ate my Kashi Trail Mix bar. After resting I got back on the bike to finish the ride. I geared down to a smaller rear gear and cranked up the speed some heading back home. All went well until I turned onto W. Lake Houston Parkway and started riding north. As I approached the slight hump in the bridge I could see a police car and ambulance blocking the road two streets past the end of the bridge with traffic stopped and slowing. I rode on the shoulder but I needed to go around two cars parked there. When I got back on the shoulder on my left in the far lane traffic stopped. All of a sudden I saw an Aramark Uniform delivery van slamming on the brakes, tires squealing as it ran into the little blue car in front of it. The little blue car’s back end got crumpled badly and the rear window shattered. I moved up the shoulder and I could see in my mirror the two of them pulled over onto the shoulder. I slowly worked my way through the traffic and turned into a side street to get around the police car and ambulance.

A little further on at Town Center a crowd of teenagers gathered in the park and surrounding streets and restaurants probably celebrating the end of school. I saw several police cars here as well keeping an eye on the activities. It took longer than usual to ride through all of the traffic here. So my riding time of 2:01:51 and stopped time of 48:25 reflect all of these things.

With the new month the monthly mileage counter resets but this week now totals 155.04 miles and YTD 2821.78 miles. Link to Ridewithgps.com data.
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