Biking to the North Is Not Cooler
I switched to a northerly ride today going to New Caney, west on FM1485 to Gene Campbell Road. FM1314 brought me to the Stripes station for the usual rest stop. After the stop I continued on through Briar Tree, Oakhurst and back to Kingwood. The cooler weather has left us and the southeast breeze brought a little higher humidity making the ride a warm one. I left home at 10:28 with a partly cloudy sky, 92 degrees, 65% humidity, 108 heat index and a light breeze. After biking 35.12 miles I got back home at 1:19 and the weather was 94 degrees, 57% humidity, 108 heat index. The breeze was 5 mph which was good for biking but didn’t help cool me down when I stopped at Stripes.
The Grand Parkway right away clearing is making progress. To the west of FM1314 the ground is almost clear and to the north of FM1314 there are big piles of ground up trees and the chipper is running. Yesterday in the Kingwood Observer there was an article about another new commercial development coming called Kingwood Creek. I asked my wife what she thought was causing all of this building and such. She said The Woodlands is nearing it’s end and the new Exxon headquarters probably are some of the reasons. For many years I wondered why The Woodlands enjoyed all of the activity and Kingwood was left out. Well they found us and things are jumping.
This will impact the bicycling route I use eventually. I did see the Kingwood Creek plans call for 15 miles of bicycle trails but I am not sure how you get that many miles in the area they will be in.
Today when I was at Stripes the Harley Davidson man I talk with was there. He said he hadn’t seen me for several days and I replied that I had been biking on different routes. Another man told me he needed to get more exercise while I sat at the pumps resting and eating some food. I invited him to join me.
Riding the route today was not much different from the the other times. I stopped at a Texaco station near Gene Campbell Road to refill my water bottle. On my previous visit the lady clerk showed me the water dispenser so that I didn’t need to use the restroom sink. Today she said she tried riding her bicycle and only got a 1/2 mile from home. She ended up walking her bicycle back because she was too tired to ride. Her husband told her that wasn’t much exercise.
I almost reached 200 miles for the week coming in at 198.79 after today’s ride. With 2 more days I could reach 250 or more. August miles are getting closer to my 845 mile goal standing at 532.91. And year to date I have rode 4736 miles.
Since I have paired the Garmin Edge 510 with my Nexus 5 phone the mileage and averaged speed on Garmin Connect are much closer to the results Golden Cheetah calculates. Also it is nice for the Edge 510 to upload the ride to Garmin Connect automatically at the end of the ride.
The weather forecast for Saturday: 96 and clear. Nothing bad about that for riding.
Links to Garmin Connect and RideWithGPS.
Click on an image to enlarge it.
