My morning started like the last several days with me watching the Pairs – Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico races before heading out on my bike ride. I decided to ride a route I haven’t biked this year yet. The last time biked the “New Caney – Gene Campbell Road” route was October 19th, 2020. I didn’t realize it had been so long. After yesterday’s flat tire I checked the patch kit on my Lynskey R300 since that was the bike I was going to ride. The kit was good and the glue unused. I rolled out at 11:13 AM thinking I might have time to stop for an apple fritter at Pat’s Donuts. That didn’t happen. One reason I chose this route was the length. I wanted to get close to 200 miles for the week in case a cool front passed through Sunday before I got home from church. Today’s 37.27 miles accomplished that putting me at 175.34 miles for the week. Saturday’s planned ride should get me there. The October ride was slightly longer at 37.33 miles. Today’s bike early in the ride.

For a change the wind didn’t include gusts but it was strong at 17 mph from the SE. The temperature was warm enough that I didn’t need a jacket. I wore shorts, a long sleeve jersey, and a short sleeve jersey. By the time I finished at 3:26 PM the inched up to 18 mph from the south. Weather conditions: start 76 (72% humidity, 66 dew point), mostly cloudy, wind SE 17 mph; finish 81 (57% humidity, 63.9 dew point), partly cloudy, wind S 18 mph. With all of the wind and from the south or southeast the humidity is building up to normal for Houston.

The ride moved along thanks to the strong wind as I rode north. Making the u-turn under US59/I-69 north of FM 1485 gave me the first exposure to how strong the wind was as I rode back to FM 1485 to go west. I knew once I got into that headwind around FM 1314 it was going to be tough pedaling.

When I turned onto Gene Campbell Blvd. I saw a new sign warning of road construction ahead. Just passed the new school construction site a flagman waved me down to let oncoming traffic through. I chatted with him until he told to go ahead. I rolled away. Not too long after that I felt my rear tire going soft and pedaling getting harder. Since I was in the one way traffic section I kept riding until I could turn right onto a side street (no name). The tire had enough air that I wasn’t riding on the rim. I turned left onto Christopher Way and found a pile of utility poles to sit on while I fixed the flat.

Inspecting the rear tire it took a couple of urns of the wheel to find the tiny piece of glass or rock. I wasn’t sure that was the cause until I got the tube out, pumped it up and looked for air escaping. Good thing I checked the patch kit before the ride. Two days in a row with a flat on different bikes. Not what I planned for. It took about 35 minutes until I got the wheel back on the bike with the hole patched. It took a little longer because I answered several text messages from my son-in-law. That was when I noticed the rear disk brake rubbing, enough to make a noise and pedaling harder. I had no idea how to adjust it so I tried removing the rear wheel and fiddling with the thru axle. It didn’t help. I did this several times after that but nothing helped. Later at home after the ride while the electricity was off I watched a YouTube video to learn how to adjust it. (I used a business card on one side of the disk for clearance and now the wheel tuns without rubbing).

Back on Gene Campbell Blvd. I ran into the headwind and my legs were not up to pedaling fast into it. On FM 1314 I struggled to keep my speed at 10 to 11 mph. Sometimes I stood up to pedal and added a few more mph. The ride home was exhausting but I made it. The wind must have blown some electric wires together and a few minutes after getting home the electricity went off for about an hour. What a welcome home!

Ride data from Golden Cheetah tells some of the story about today’s bike ride.

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