After watching the La Fleche Wallone race from Europe I got an earlier start biking. My first attempt to leave was at 10:25 but about 500 feet into the ride I realized I left my cell phone at home so I circled back to get it. The purpose of today’s ride was to check out the road construction on FM1485 east of Loop 494. The warning signs have been up for a month or more but no work is visible from Loop 494. The sign says the work is for 6 miles. This reaches to the east fork of the San Jacinto River. I want to ride around the north side of Lake Houston in the future and this road is the primary way to do it.

Heading east on FM1485 the first signs of construction was the approach and exit to the bridge over Caney Creek. The asphalt had been ground off leaving the ruts of the grinding head. This can be tricky riding over but my tires fit in the grooves and no problem. The next bridge goes over Peach Creek and it had the same treatment. Coming up the hill from Peach Creek I could see traffic backed up. Earlier I saw two signs warning of one lane traffic but there was none. This time the signs were correct. After stopping for several minutes the east bound traffic started moving. I pulled over into the left lane with 3 or 4 vehicles behind me. In a few hundred feet I hit chip’n seal  which did not appear to be too old. This went for about two miles. The right lane was chip’n seal as well and once I cleared the construction equipment I moved to that lane to let the traffic behind me pass. I think I rode about 2 miles on the chip’n seal from Peach Creek Baptist Church to East River Baptist Church just before the street I would turn on. All the time I was thinking “I hope this is not the final surface for FM1485”. At East River Baptist I had to wait for the oncoming traffic to clear. Once they were gone I headed to Willaby Road to turn left and go to Roman Forest. As I approached Willaby the road had a new 3″ coat of asphalt in the right lane and my questioned answered.

With the construction on FM1485 I will delay the ride around north Lake Houston for a few weeks. Once it is finished the road should be nice and smooth again to at least the east fork of the river where Harris County begins.

I expected to lengthen the route I rode on 10/29/2013 by going through Forest Colony and Auburn Trails on the return section to Kingwood. In October the distance was 35.5 miles and today I biked 37.29 miles. Normally I do not go through Auburn Trails because I end up on the south bound US59 service road and it shortens the by a mile or so. With today’s longer ride this was not a problem.

Stopping at the Stripes station on FM1314 for about 30 minutes allowed me to recover and ride a good pace the rest of the way home. I averaged 15.7 mph against a 9 mph south wind. The temperature was 77 at the start and 84 when I finished at 1:30. The sky was partly cloudy. When I was at Stripes one man asked if the wind was a problem and I said not really, it has been harder on other rides.

[wppa type=”slide” album=”314″ size=”auto”][/wppa]

[iframe http://connect.garmin.com:80/activity/embed/485772522 465px 548px]

[iframe http://ridewithgps.com/trips/2526881 95% 700px]