Today’s bike ride was on the “Kingwood – SH 242 – Kingwood” route. I rode 34.35 miles boosting the week to 175.49 miles and the month to 268.76 miles. The bike ride started at 10:53 am, about 10 minutes earlier than yesterday. The weather during while cycling: start 90 (58% humidity), partly cloudy, wind 6 mph. Finish 95 (39% humidity), partly cloudy, wind S 5 mph. It was a hot ride and I stopped twice to refill my water bottle.

This route goes through Woodridge Forest a newly developed subdivision. Today while riding there I stopped and took these photos. New home construction is underway and these are a few of them.

Going north the pedaling wasn’t too hard and I made good time to SH 242 without any stops except for traffic lights and stop signs. It has been a couple of week since I checked on the Grand Texas waterpark which is scheduled to open later this month. A couple of photos from SH 242 show some of the buildings and slides.

While I was taking these several trucks and cars moved from the work site to SH 242 on what appeared to a dirt road. Also I don’t see parking lots from this angle. This could make things interesting because they may not be in place by the end of June. The increase in traffic on SH 242 will make biking more difficult although this is on the east end of SH 242 and it is possible to bypass this area.

Biking south I expected the light wind to make it harder than the trip to SH 242 but it wasn’t too hard. I stopped at the Mobil station at FM 1485 and I-69/US59 for ice and water but I didn’t stay long. I was saving the rest stop for the Valero/Circle K station at Northpark Drive. During the ride to the Valero my average speed was 15 to 16 mph which increased my overall average speed to 14.2 mph.

By the time I got to the Valero I really needed a rest break. I brought some strawberry Newton cookies with me expecting them to refill my energy. I got water and ice, sat on the bottle water rack outside and slowly ate and drank. The shade and sometime light breeze helped to revive me. A screenshot of the Elemnt tracking while I was at the Valero.

I think I stayed there for 20 to 25 minutes. This was about 7 miles from the finish. Back on the bike I rode south to Kingwood Drive, made the u-turn and began winding through Kings Manor and then into Kingwood. Around the 31 mile point my legs said they were going to slow down because the energy wasn’t there anymore. Overall average speed was 14.1 mph at that point but it starting dropping and ended up at 13.7 mph when I finished at 2:00 pm. The heat took a toll. I need to start earlier in the day.

Saturday I will try to start earlier and the weather looks to be a repeat of today.

SportTracks Bike Ride Summary

Strava.com link

It looks like Strava has removed the embed code from the detail page.