Today’s weather fit the ideal profile for a bike ride. When I started at 9:43 AM the temperature registered 79 degrees with 79% humidity. By the time I finished at 12:31 the temperature increased to 91 but the humidity dropped to 43%. I could tell when I started that the air felt a touch cooler than my last ride on Saturday. Since then a cool front moved through with over 3″ of rain falling at my house. The clear blue held no clouds today. As a sign my gloves got wet from sweat from not as soaked as usual. The extra dry air dried them out as I rode.

An unusual ride today in that I did not take any rest stops. I rode straight through other than stopping for stoplights and traffic at stop signs.Riding time totaled 2:43:10 plus only 4:30 time stopped. It seemed like I stopped at almost every traffic light I passed through but near the end of the ride I made it through several without stopping. The 6 mph variable direction breeze did not slow me down much so I managed a nice 15.8 mph average speed. At the 40 mile point my average speed showed 16.1 mph. I just started the residential street part of the ride at that point so my speed slowed due to stopping and starting. The short section of greenbelt trail also slows me down.

The 43.07 mile route mostly followed my usual US59 to SR242 to FM1314 direction but I changed a few streets after leaving FM1314 to go through Auburn Trails, a new subdivision under construction along US59 on the south bound service road. The number of houses under construction shows the housing problems probably does not exist here. When I rode on FM1314 the pace enabled me to improve the average speed more so than on SR242. The table below shows the time and distance breakdown:

With 76.4% of the distance in Zone 3 this is what enabled the 16.1 mph average speed at 40 miles. August miles now total 460.26 and YTD miles are 4395.22. Hopefully this weather hangs around for tomorrow’s ride.

Link to RideWithGPS.com data view and map.

8-20-2012 Bike Ride Data and Map

8-20-2012 Cadence-Distance

8-20-2012 Elevation-Distance

8-20-2012 Home Weather Station End

8-20-2012 IAH Weather End

8-20-2012 Speed-Distance

8-20-2012 Splits-Time

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