I helped my niece this morning which delayed the start of my bike ride but that was okay because the weather warmed up. I put my Canyon Endurace wheels in motion at 12:59 PM to ride my “Atascocita – FM 2100 – Walden” route. I needed 47.3 miles to reach my road mile goal for February and today’s bike ride covered 31.88 miles getting me close. The weather tomorrow looks good with a possible high of 80 degrees. It’s hard to remember over a week ago the temperature didn’t get above freezing for several days. My February road mile total stands at 384.5 miles leaving 15.5 miles to go. At the beginning of the week I didn’t think I would get close to my goal but 7 days of good biking weather made the difference. I’m 9 miles short of the first 200 mile week of 2021 too.

Starting this late I didn’t expect to see other cyclists but 2 passed me on Old Atascocita Road as you can see in the video.

Speaking of weather, wind dominated the bike ride today. Riding conditions: start 76 (73% humidity, 66.4 dew point), mostly cloudy, wind SE 14 mph; finish 76 (74% humidity, 67.2 dew point), mostly cloudy, wind S 13 mph gusts 23 mph. I battled the wind to get to the FM 2100 turn around point. I took a chance on my kit by not wearing a windbreaker jacket. Instead I wore shorts, a long sleeve jersey, and a short sleeve jersey. My only concern once I warmed up was the chilly wind blowing over Lake Houston. The ride going east wasn’t that chilly but the return trip headed west was noticeably cooler with the wind coming from my left. The traffic blocked it at times giving me a break. I didn’t realize the wind strengthened during the ride until I got home and looked at the weather.

My power output was better than yesterday. My legs challenged the wind although it took 20 miles to get my average speed to 14.0 mph. 51% of the riding time was in power zones 1 and 2, an improvement from yesterday’s ride. My max watts was 451. Maybe some extra adrenaline from thinking about the 3 year anniversary of my Canyon Endurace bike arrival helped. Strava reported the ride was consistent with my usual efforts.