I rode a northerly route today going to New Caney and then to Roman Forest Blvd. on US59. Up to that point the wind was my friend but making the u-turn under US59 at Roman Forest Blvd. I hit the wind from the SE. As I was riding on the service road just before that u-turn I started to hear a tap-tap sound from one of my tires. I stopped under US59 and inspected my front tire to find a 2″ piece of wire sticking in the tire. Once I removed that the tapping sound went away. I think this averted a future flat. I plan on replacing both tires in about 100 miles. At that distance each tire will have about 4,000 miles on them. I have had good results with the Continental Gatorskin tires and two are in my bike stockpile of stuff.

The overcast sky wanted to become rain but it just didn’t happen. That was the reason I chose this route so I would be close to places to get out of the rain if the situation arose. The wind was stiff at 18 mph but I still managed to average 15.1 mph over the 33.85 mile route. Riding with the wind for the first 15 or 16 miles let me build up my average speed so that when I got the headwind I still stayed in the 15 mph range. This is easier than trying to overcome a slow average speed at the beginning of a ride.

Sometime prior to the ride I changed something on my Garmin Edge 510 so the screen did not display the normal screen and did not chime when I passed through the 5 mile lap points. I tried setting various things several times but the screen kept going back to the wrong one. Finally I gave up and waited until I got home to find the problem. With this  problem I did not get the 5 mile interval breakdowns I normally have. Once I got home I noticed that I had it set on “Race” instead of “Ride” for the type of activity. Changing to “Ride” brought back the screens I wanted. You would think the data would convert over but so far I haven’t figured out how to do that.

With the temperature at 77 degrees I chose a long sleeve jersey thinking I would not need two jerseys to stay warm. The wind was a little chilly when I stopped but while I was riding the heat I generated was enough to counteract the wind chill.

November miles now total 98.56. Year to date I biked 5645 miles.

Tomorrow has a 70% chance of rain so I probably will not get to ride.

Links to Garmin Connect and RideWithGPS.com metrics and maps.

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