Weather Change Awaited On Bike Ride to Roman Forest Blvd.
The fog let up and the temperature went up for today’s bike ride. The streets were still damp in places but not enough to spray up as I rode. The last outdoor bike ride was last Tuesday and it felt good to be pedaling outdoors. I pressed the start button the Bolt computer at 11:16 AM as I rolled off riding my Lynskey R300 bike. The route headed north to Roman Forest Blvd. where i turned back to the south. By the time I finished at 1:42 PM I rode 32.56 miles climbing a whopping 33 feet. Not much climbing compared to my Zwift bike rides. This pushed my road miles for January to 260.2, only 40 miles short of my goal.
Weather conditions: 75 (82% humidity, 69.1 dew point), mostly cloudy, wind SW 14 mph gusts 22 mph; finish 71 (45% humidity, 48.4 dew point), overcast, wind NW 12 mph. I decided to wear two new items for today’s bike ride: Pearl Izumi Elite Gel Gloves (black) and a Voler long sleeve jersey. Little did I know the weather change waiting at New Caney. Riding north the wind helped get me to New Caney but as I pull onto the US59 frontage road from Payne Road I felt the wind shift from the SW to the NW and the drop in temperature caught my attention. The front I saw on the radar before leaving arrived and I worried about the chill before finishing the ride. When I made the u-turn at Roman Forest Blvd. I experienced a rare event biking, a tailwind when I biked north and a tailwind biking south, though it was a chilly one going south. I sped up to get home bumping my average speed to 14.8 mph at one point, thanks to the urgency and tailwind. As I pedaled to a stop at FM 1314 headed south the chill seemed to let up from that point on. I think I caught the leading edge of the front. As you can see in the conditions above the humidity and dew point dropped from the start time to the finish time and I felt the difference.
The new clothing.
No medals on the few Strava segments on my “New Caney – Roman Forest Blvd – Valley Ranch” route.