What a windy bike ride today. I left at 11:05 AM heading north and northwest with a tailwind pedaling my Lynskey R300 bike. The route was similar to one I rode earlier in April but with additional streets. I call it the “Kingwood – FM1314 NW to McQueen Road” route. The first time I biked 34.63 miles but today I rode 40.47 miles finishing at 2:44 PM. Biking to the turn around point at McQueen Road and FM 1314 the tailwind helped me keep the the speed at 18+ mph. But the trip back to the southeast entailed fighting the strong headwind and I paid the price for the easier part of the bike ride.

Those 40.47 miles boosted my week to 118.68 miles and April to 877 miles. April now is the highest month so far in 2021 and the most since July 2020 when I biked 922 miles. With 2 more biking days left maybe I can surpass July 2020. Year to date totals 2,938 miles but still trails my 2020 pace by 56 miles. I narrowed the gap by a few miles from yesterday.

What the weather looked like at the start and finish of the bike ride. Notice the wind speeds and gusts from the weather conditions: start 84 (66% humidity, 71.6 dew point), a few clouds, wind S 20 mph gusts 27 mph; 81 (80% humidity, 74.3 dew point), mostly cloudy, wind S 18 mph gusts 29 mph.

The last time I rode this route I raced back McQueen Road to Pat’s Donuts getting there a few minutes before they closed at 1 PM. Today I knew the wind would make getting back to Pat’s hard so I stopped on the way to McQueen Road. My last 2 stops at Pat’s they did not have any apple fritters but today they did. I bought 1 and they gave me a free glazed donut, I ate the fritter at Pat’s before resuming the ride. Glad I did it in this order because the wind was a killer riding back to the southeast.

When I reached the 37.1 mile point I was in Oakhurst and stopped to let my legs recover while I sat in the shade on a bench in the shade by the greenbelt. They felt stronger after the 10 minute stop.

In the early part of the ride I stopped on Woodland Hills Drive and took these photos.

• 

• 

I collected a silver medal for one segment “Stripes to OldHoustonRd” in Strava.