While some cyclists are on their way to Wichita Falls for the Hotter’n Hell 100 I stayed home and rode the “Kingwood – SH 242 – Kingwood” route recording 35.26 miles. It was hot here but not yet to the 100 degree mark when I started at 10:01 am and finished at 12:42 pm. During the ride weather: start 88 (66% humidity), a few clouds, wind SW 7 mph. Finish 94 (50% humidity), partly cloudy, wind W 8 mph. In the shade at the start it even felt cooler but that didn’t last long once I was beyond the early miles.

I am closing in on my August goal with 753.1 miles with only 46.9 miles remaining. It will probably be Monday when I surpass the goal with Saturday’s bike ride being 30+ miles. The week’s total stands at 171.92 miles.

To add a couple of miles today I cycled through Tavola and then north on the side road that parallels the railroad tracks in Woodbranch. I took these photos about midway between Roman Forest Blvd. and the Woodbranch City Hall and Police Station.

The first photo looks north and the second to the south. Traffic is light and homes facing the road are few. You wouldn’t guess the train tracks are 30 feet to the west.

Expecting the wind to extract extra energy on the ride south back to Kingwood I was surprised that it wasn’t so hard. I built my average speed up to 14.7 mph on the way back to Kingwood Drive. Two stops for water and ice: Mobil station in New Caney at FM 1485 and the Circle K/Valero at Northpark Drive. Each stop was just long enough to walk inside, fill the bottle and go back out to the Canyon bike.

PowerPod report: when the ride started I wasn’t sure how the PowerPod was going to work. After yesterday’s ride I connected the PP to the Isaac software to see what the profile looked like. The PP wireless was connected to all of the sensors so I had high hopes for today. But until 1.58 miles into the ride all I saw were two zeros on the Elemnt screen for watts from there on the watts appeared and seemed to be realistic. No more meddling with the PP except to download ride data once a week.

New TickrFit HR monitor continues to work perfectly.

Saturday I plan on biking early to catch the Bike Barn bikers and to get back home in time to watch the start of the Vuelta a Espana at 11 am.

SportTracks Bike Ride Summary