At 7 AM this morning it was 47 degrees. This meant I needed to be very optimistic that it would go up 25 degrees to reach the 72 degrees in the forecast. While I waited on the weather to heat up I watched the Tour of the Basque Country. As I ate lunch the temperature fluctuated between 68 and 70. Finally as I left the house on my ride at 2:00 PM my weather station reached 71 degrees. At first I was going to wear a long sleeve and short sleeve jerseys but i changed my mind to a long sleeve jersey and windbreaker jacket and no leg warmers. This turned out to be a good decision with the sunshine and calm wind. I was very comfortable and when i got back home I saw the temperature moved up to 76. After two days of overcast skies, rain on Wednesday and 55 degree max on Thursday it was great to get back on the bike.

I chose today’s route to get some extra miles to make up for the shorter routes on the two rides earlier this week. Riding north to New Caney and west on FM1485 this route totaled 37.66 miles, above the 32 miles I averaged per ride in April 2012. The calm wind helped me ride at 15.8 mph on average today and the two rest days probably played a part. April miles now total 95.93 and 1410.57 miles year to date. I did stop in Porter on the way back home to rest. I enjoyed the sun and Diet Pepsi as I sat on the concrete.

Tomorrow I will ride with the Houston Cycling Club Kingwood/Humble group. So far 3 of us plan on heading south and east through Huffman to the Liberty County line.  The weather looks like it will be slightly warmer on Saturday. This route should be around 40 miles.

Links to Garmin Connect and RideWithGPS.com alternate route maps and stats.

Put your mouse pointer on a picture to pause the slide show.

[wppa type=”slideonlyf” album=”122″ size=”auto”][/wppa]