Ah, rain, its necessary for many things but not bike rides. I delayed the start of the bike ride until 11:03 AM by watching two road races. I kept an eye on the weather radar because rain was in the area too. It looked okay when I rode my Canyon Endurace to begin but I figured I might run into rain. My planned route was “Atascocita – Walden – FM 2100” but the dark clouds hovering over FM 1960 east of Lake Houston inspired me to change to the “Atascocita – Walden – E. Lake Houston Parkway” route. Maybe I was too hasty changing the route. As I rode west back over Lake Houston about half way to the west shore it started raining (the video covers this). Possibly if I stayed on my original route the rain would’ve had time to move away by the time I got back to FM 1960 to ride west. Or it could’ve caught me on Old Atascocita Road and I had even longer to ride in the rain. I’ll never know. what I do know, when the rain started I rode in it all the way back into Kingwood. I stopped for about 15 minutes at the Kings River Pool when the thunder became more frequent. It was still raining when I left but the thunder lessened. Stopping might’ve been a bad choice because I cooled down and when I began riding it felt very chilly. I didn’t realize that the temperature dropped about 10 degrees from the start. I rode on the greenbelt trail hoping the overhanging tee limbs would shelter me from the rain but it rained enough to soak them and let it fall to the ground. That might’ve been a good idea earlier but not when I was biking.

Once I was back in Kingwood the rain stopped but I was soaked so it didn’t really help. The rain was still around just not where I was. After I finished the ride at 1:35 PM I looked at the Canyon Endurace. It was dirty as was I. I got soap and a brush to wash the Canyon and it looked much better after I finished.

This was not a fast ride but once the rain started in the middle of the lake I sped up which I think increased the rain hitting me. Weather summary: start 82 (84% humidity, 77 dew point), mostly cloudy, wind SW 6 mph; finish 73 (98% humidity, 73 dew point), rain, wind S 4 mph. The probability of rain increases Wednesday and Thursday. Hopefully I can bike and not get rained on again.

This was the 6th time biking this route in 2021. I don’t think any of the other times was in the rain. I rode 28.5 miles which puts September 2021 ahead of September 2020 by 8 miles at 810.1 miles this year.