Hot All the Way to Huffman – Eastgate
Another hot day for biking. Part of this I could avoid if I started earlier. When I worked Saturday rides were the long ride of the week and in order to get the ride in and do some chores and be with my wife I would start around 7 AM or earlier. I have also started a ride at 6 AM on a Sunday to bike 20+ miles before church and the heat. Old age and retirement changes the necessity to do this I guess.
The ride began at 10:11 heading to Huffman-Eastgate Road east of Huffman and just a few hundred yards short of the Liberty County line. I wanted to ride 35+ miles and actually biked 37.54 miles. It was 88 degrees with 74% humidity and the heat index was 103. It didn’t take long to start sweating but the air moving past me help to dry up the perspiration.
Riding through Kings Forest I saw a man and woman riding mountain bikes but without helmets. They said hi. Not long after that I saw two women on road bikes in Town Center. The last biker sighting was on Fairlake Drive. This man had a flat rear tire. I stopped to check on him. He said this was the second flat of the ride and he didn’t have another tube. Before I could offer to help he said his wife was on the way to pick him up. We talked about the debris on the bridge over Lake Houston and the flats it can cause. I resumed the ride and he continued walking toward FM1960.
Wind wasn’t that strong but it held my speed down at times. I ended up averaging 15.7 mph. The places where the wind helped was on FM9160 east of FM2100. I was able to make up some time I lost when I was riding into the wind.
I got back home at 1:13. By then the temperature was a balmy 97, 51% humidity thanks to the SW wind, 112 heat index and partly cloudy sky.
Yesterday as I neared home a helicopter was hovering close to where I was biking. It looked life a Life Flight helicopter. It moved a few times and then seemed to leave. Today in the newspaper I read that a house fire happened around 12:45 and a person was taken to the hospital. This wasn’t too far from the streets I was riding on. Today I rode past the house and it has some damage and you can see where the smoke and fire came out. A man was standing in the front yard and I waved as I rode by.
When I got home today I cleaned up my Motobecane 700HT mountain bike before going in the house. Earlier this week I read a blog post from the Bike Noob about how he started riding his mountain bike recently to get some variety. I plan on doing that tomorrow. I biked 236.34 miles this week which allows for some different riding. I am well on my to reaching my August goal of 845 miles with 561.46 miles so far. Year to date I stand at 4774 miles. I have rode 15 out of 16 days so far too. It is time for a change. The weather is supposed to repeat today’s.
Links to Garmin Connect and RideWithGPS.
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