The bike ride began at 9:57 AM, a little later than the previous rides this week. I chose the Canyon Endurace CF SLX bike and rolled out to follow what I call the “New Caney – Tavola – Valley Ranch” route. Today I biked 35.18 miles, about average for this route and enough to move the week’s total to 106.34 miles and July to 487.31 miles, 61% of the way to my 800 mile goal. This was the 15th time to ride this route in 2020. A summary of the rides in 2020 on this route.

For a change no heat advisory for today. The temperature was about 5 degrees cooler than Monday and Tuesday at the start of the bike ride. I could feel difference for a few minutes until I warmed up. The wind helped me get to Tavola and tried to slow me down on the way back but I managed to keep my average speed at 14.2 mph or higher. Weather at the start and finish of the bike ride: start 85 (84% humidity, 79.2 dew point), mostly cloudy, wind SW 8 mph. Finish 95 (57% humidity, 77.7 dew point), mostly cloudy, wind SE 10 mph. Sahara dust round 2 is supposed to arrive but I didn’t notice it today.

In the video I said the GoPro mount was working better today and that was true until I got back into Kingwood. The camera started vibrating making me think one of the bolts worked loose. I stopped and tightened what I thought was the problem. As I rode to the 12:50 PM finish the camera started moving strangely. At the end of the bike ride I looked closely and saw one of the GoPro mount pieces cracked and ready to let the camera fall on the ground. I held the camera moving it forward some and the mount broke off. So much for my new mount engineering. Now I need to devise a new solution. Holding the GoPro Hero7 Silver in my hand works except for the audio is drowned out by wind noise. I use a mic adapter with the Hero7 Black complicating storage and hand holding. So far at least 3 mount setups cracked from vibration. A photo of today’s failure.

Tomorrow I plan on riding the Lynskey R300 with the GoPro handlebar mount that resisted cracking so far. If the Canyon Endurace handlebar shape worked with that mount the problem might be solved but it has an aero shape.

With the mount appearing to work for most of the ride I concentrated on pedaling. Strava says my ride was consistent with my usual effort.