The wind was punishing on today’s ride on the “Oakhurst – Cumberland – Valley Ranch” route. It was from the SSW at 15 mph with gusts of 23 mph although I think the 23 mph was happening more frequently than an occasional gust. The temperature was 84 degrees with partly cloudy skies. Despite the warm temperature I wore a long sleeve jersey for sun protection. One of these rides I will switch to short sleeve jerseys and use the sun screen. As long as I was going north on this 32.53 mile long route the wind helped me go at 20+ mph but other directions I bogged down to 15 or 16 mph. The south bound service road from Valley Ranch to Northpark Drive was particularly tough. There was no windbreak making pedal turning slow. I looked at my Garmin a couple of times and saw 12 mph or so. Sometimes I think I was slower than that. I should’ve changed to a lower gear on the rear cassette but I kept pushing it. I was in the 34 x 13. I hated to change to the 34 x 14. As a result my average speed suffered. It maxed out at 14.9 mph and ended up at 14.5 mph for the whole ride.

To give my legs a chance to recover I stopped at the Texaco station at the Valley Ranch entrance from the US59 service road. It felt good to sit and eat a couple of snack bars and drink the ice water. After about 15 minutes I rolled out into the stiff wind going south. A short stop at the traffic light at FM1314 in Porter gave my legs some rest but the rod from there is flat for about a mile when a gentle slope down comes in. This time the wind negated any downward help from the slope. The next relief came at Northpark Drive where I made a u-turn onto the north service road to get to Knox Street and turn towards Kingwood. At this point the trees provided a little refuge from the wind for the last 4 miles home.

I had to make this ride with the end time in mind. I have an appointment to take our Jeep Grand Cherokee to the dealer to see why the engine malfunction light is on. I left home at 11:06 about an hour earlier than usual and got home at 1:41.

I reached the 1209 mile point for the year. Last year I was at 1482 miles on this date. I am slowly getting back the miles I lost from the bad weather in January, February and March.

Weather at Valley Ranch in Porter

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