The wind let up a few miles per hour but gusts about 30 mph. Today I hit the headwind first riding to the north on my “Kingwood – FM1485 – Kingwood” route. I pushed the Bolt start button at 11:16 AM on my Lynskey R300 bike. The temperature was 6 or 7 degrees cooler so I dressed warmer than yesterday. Whenever I rode out in the open the wind gusts played havoc with my bike’s wheels. Maybe I should’ve put the Vision 30 wheels back on the Lynskey rather the ICAN Alpha 50 wheels. I didn’t think of that before the ride. At the north side of Caney Creek the u-turn under US59 reversed my direction and picked up a tailwind. My pedaling effort went down and my speed went up. When I finished at 1:54 PM I biked 31.43 miles boosting my week’s total to 165.24 miles. Looks like I will ride both Saturday and Sunday to hit 200 miles for the week. That’s okay. The wind should decrease by then. With it getting later in the year the routes I ride often are adding up. This was the 17th time on this route. The average power today was one of the higher ones.

While the wind gusts fell from 40 mph to 29 mph the temperature went down too. I broke out some of my “cold” weather gear to keep comfortable: shorts, leg warmers, thermal long sleeve jersey, and wind jacket. The low humidity and dew point added to chill as far as I was concerned. Weather conditions: start 66 (humidity 36%, dew point 39), fair, wind NW 13 mph gusts 22 mph; finish 70 (humidity 30%, dew point 37), fair, wind NW 18 mph gusts 29 mph. Good thing I didn’t ride longer because the wind gusts increased after I finished.

The dogs at Rock Creek Drive and Northpark Drive were waiting for me today. This time the dark brown dog ran towards me barking while the brown and white dog joined in running in the grass beside Rock Creek. Not wanting to take a chance I rode through the red light turning right onto Northpark. The brown dog didn’t chase me too far while the brown and white dog stuck to his usual running ritual pulling up short when he got to the “magic” spot where he stopped quickly. Earlier I had thought about staying on the US59 southbound frontage road continuing south of Northpark Drive to the first side street to avoid the dog spot. Maybe next time.