Waiting until 12:11 pm to start today’s bike I felt somewhat confident that the rain chances of coming down while I biked decreased. Selecting the “Atascocita – Walden – Huffman” route I set out with the sky covered with clouds, some of them quite dark. But there a couple of holes opened up every once in a while and I saw blue sky which lasted only a few minutes. Part of the reason for the late start was me watching stage 17 of the Vuelta a Espana where the sun shined a lot and the mountain climb hit 24% near the finish. I think I will take the rain clouds over 24% climbs.

The plan was to bike at least 28 miles (4% of my goal for September) to get back on schedule but thanks to the clouds keeping their rain I rode 35.63 miles (5% of of my goal). This puts me at 287.28 miles for September or 41% of my goal of 700 miles.

Weather during the bike ride: start 81 (85% humidity), mostly cloudy, wind SE 8 mph. Finish 85 (73% humidity), mostly cloudy, wind SE 8 mph. The humidity increase from last week makes for lots of perspiration even though it is not so hot.

As I rode east of Lake Houston the clouds looked threatening sometimes. I stopped on Old Atascocita Road east of FM 2100 and took these photos. The blue I wrote about earlier peeks through on the first photo looking to the northwest but the second photo to the northeast is not so generous.

After taking the photos I rode back to FM 2100 to go to Huffman. No stop at the Chevron station since I thought my water would last to the finish which it did. Riding west the wind was more helpful and I keep a good pace. The dark clouds continued to move in and out of sight but still no rain. I was concerned about getting across Kingwood Drive on the return trip because of Kingwood High School traffic but when i got there the three cars in front of me moved across the street and I did too with no traffic in sight. During the last 2 miles the temperature got cooler and then warmed up which made me think rain was nearby. A dark cloud wasn’t too far away but I made it home and finished the ride at 2:50 pm dry from rain but not from sweating.

Rain forecast for Thursday is 60% so biking might not happen.

SportTracks Bike Ride Summary