I skipped the dog sprints on today’s bike ride without any objections on my part. Rolling away at 8:11 AM I expected to see some other cyclists along my “Atascocita – Huffman – Walden” route and I wasn’t disappointed. Now that the FM 2100 construction paved most of the northbound side from Old Atascocita Road I can ride to Huffman without dodging the weeds on the sidewalk. 6 times I rode the route in 2021. Today’s 33.27 miles is the longest of the group. This improved the week to 115.07 miles and September to 468.79 miles. It won’t be a 200 mile week though.

The temperature was in the lower 70’s at the start and 85 when I finished at 10:44 AM. Since it was cooler I opted to use one of my new Polar Breakaway Insulated water bottles in place of the CamelBak. I wanted to see if the water stayed cool until the finish and it did. On shorter rides I may use the Polar bottle. Not having the 3 pounds of water on my back felt different. As the ride progressed the sun moved above the trees with just a few clouds making it bright. Weather summary: start 74 (99% humidity, 74 dew point), mostly cloudy, wind calm; finish 85 (74% humidity, 76 dew point), partly cloudy, wind NW 7 mph. The light wind didn’t pose much a problem.

The red tint in the right picture is from my flashing taillight. I didn’t think to turn it off for the photo. The first time I tried to get a drink it took me a few seconds to figure out how to open the valve; it pulls up.