Looking at my home weather station as I prepared to start today’s ride I thought I might be slightly over dressed with both a long and short sleeve jersey. The weather station temperature moved from 54 degrees at 7 AM to 79 degrees at 12:09 at the start of my ride. Because I wanted to get going I left the long jersey on. As I rode away the sun felt nice and warm but in the shade the strong ESE 15 mph wind reminded me that fall arrived. Later on I would be glad I wore the long sleeve jersey. The clear blue sky and fairly low humidity (40%) greeted me as I rode along heading south to Eagle Springs, Walden and then over Lake Houston to Huffman before returning home.

Since I missed two days of biking (last ride on Monday) I wanted a longer route to try and hit 100 miles for the week. Saturday will be an off day but I plan on biking Friday and Sunday. The wind supplied plenty of resistance on the south and east portions of the route but the north and west enjoyed a helping hand from the wind. I stopped in Huffman at my usual Chevron station, went inside to fill my water bottle with ice and buy the required Diet Pepsi. I always get a Greensheet newspaper to sit on outside which I did today. Once I got outside I set positioned the Greensheet in the sun and set the Diet Pepsi on top to hold it in place from the wind while I went over to my bike and put my water bottle in the cage and my change holder in the seat bag. A burst of wind passed under the gas canopy and blew my Diet Pepsi off of the Greensheet which in turn blew across the parking spaces. I ran after the flying sheets and caught most of them and one of the station clerks chased down the rest. I tried to reassemble the Greensheet to sit on but the strong wind tried to thwart my efforts. I ended up stepping around the corner out of the wind and succeeded. With the wind I sat in the sun to enjoy the warmth and offset the wind.

This route ended up with 34.54 miles. The Garmin Edge 500 is back to normal after the software crash at the end of Monday’s ride. So I have the usual data and map. Even with the wind I averaged 15.9 mph today and a top speed of 25.3 mph (SportTracks) but I think a more accurate top speed comes from Garmin Connect (22.0 mph) and RideWithGPS.com (21.4 mph). Cadence averaged 81.6 RPM. With today’s mileage I move further into the 6000 territory with 6065.19 miles YTD and 124.96 miles for November. The week to date totals 65.94, not too far from the 100 miles I want for this week. Riding time came in at 2:10:25 plus 24:49 time stopped.

The ride back home from Huffman moved right along with the help of the ESE wind. I felt just right temperature wise. I made great time. Now comes the point that I mentioned earlier about glad I wore the long sleeve jersey. My route took me on the west sidewalk along W. Lake Houston in front of the Bank of America building, Evidently this area ran the water irrigation system enough to fill the street gutter with water. As I rode between the two driveways a SUV drive through the water sending a sheet of water towards me. This happened so sudden that I could not move out of the way so I got drenched. Thankfully my jerseys absorbed the water but my sunglasses were covered with water, my legs and the bike dripped. I made it home and wiped off the bike, glasses and myself. Next time I better stop if the water stands in the gutter.

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