Great weather for today’s ride. If this weather happened where I grew up there would be all kinds of records set. But for the Texas Upper Gulf Coast 79 degrees on December 1st is not unheard of. Scattered clouds and a stiff south 17.3 mph wind (20 mph gusts) offset some of the warmth especially when I rode over bodies of water. Coming back home on FM1960 over Lake Houston the sun decided to hide behind the clouds for the whole crossing. Up to that point I was just about the perfect temperature but the wind blowing off of the lake put a definite coolness so I tried to ride faster to both get to the west bank and stay warm by working harder. I don’t know if I was successful in either one.

Unlike yesterday’s roaming rain clouds the sky showed many patches of blue and if you looked at the clouds on an angle to the horizon they appeared to be darker than when I was underneath them. While I stopped in Huffman at my usual Chevron station Action Sign’s moving message board said 84 degrees and sitting on the milk crate drinking my Diet Pepsi I felt nice and warm. Tomorrow could be slightly warmer. The warmth brought out two other bicyclists on my route.

I didn’t even think of any other route than going to Huffman and back. My late start (12:10) was going to push me to get back home by 2:30 (made it at 2:28) to watch the University of Cincinnati football game with the University of Connecticut. I figured 28 or 29 miles would be about as far as I could go and make the kickoff. This route ended up at 29.74 miles at 15.5 mph average speed, 26.2 mph tops speed (SportTracks) while Garmin Connect says 21.4 mph and RideWithGPS.com agrees 21.3 mph is closer to the Garmin speed. Riding time was 1:54:46 and 22:23 stop time. Mileage for the year now totals 6306.89.

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