Warm December continued for today’s bike ride but the wind went crazy. Rolling out at 11:17 AM on the Lynskey R300 bike I headed north with a nice tailwind but I knew I would pay the price on the return south back to Kingwood. I rode my “New Caney – Tavola – Valley Ranch” route covering 35.95 miles. With these miles I doubled my 150 mile road goal for the month with 301.1 miles. Eighteen times I’ve biked this route in 2021. One of the rides I do most weeks. Each of my two bikes have done it 9 times. That’s unusual.

Wind was the challenge today. A steady 17 mph from the south propelled me to Tavola adding in 24 to 25 mph gusts. On the way back the headwind was stiff. As I rode south on the service road the passing traffic shielded me from the wind some but when there was a blank space I got the full puff. No need to add clothes today with the temperature in the mid to upper 70’s by the time I finished at 2:31 PM. Overall weather conditions: tart 77 (humidity 81%, dew point 71), mostly cloudy, wind S 17 mph gusts 24 mph; finish 78 (humidity 77%, dew point 70), mostly cloudy, wind S 17 mph gusts 25 mph.

Riding to Tavola I stopped at the cemetery to visit my wife’s grave site. Walking back to my bike I saw an urn with flowers laying on it’s side and reached down to stand it back up. Unbeknownst to me it was resting on a fire ant mound. In an instance my hand was covered by a bunch of those stinging little varmints. I started brushing them off and escaped with only a few stings. That was the stinging encounter. As I rode away a couple of ants crawled out of my glove and were dispatched quickly before they could inflict pain.

Back in Kingwood I decided to stop at the new bike shop 29ERS Bike Shop on Chestnut Ridge. I talked with Johnny for several minutes and gave him a Texbiker.net business card. Riding away from there I turned onto Stonehollow Drive. As I approached Kingwood Nursery a black pickup pulled out in front of me. I grabbed the brakes and the pickup spun wheels or we would’ve collided. That is one pickup I didn’t want to meet up close.

With all of the warm weather the colorful flowers at Valley Ranch Parkway and Texas 99 caught my eye. I circled back and took these photos.

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Notice all of the scrapes on the pole. This intersection has had numerous wrecks and I think they caused the marks.

I’m back to the local legend on this Strava segment: Local Legend on Briar Willow to Lodge