Today’s bike ride started at 10:14 AM, early for me so far this year. The temperature was a nice 74 degrees, maybe the warmest temperature at the start of a bike ride so far this year. Before leaving I watched the women’s and men’s Strade Bianche road races from Italy. Many sections of gravel and dirt roads. Great races from GCN+. I chose to ride my “Atascocita – Huffman – Walden” route and go through the construction zones on the west side of Lake Houston at Atascocita Shores Drive and FM 1960. I made through them without problems though I needed to wait for traffic to clear riding back from the east where the barriers eliminate the shoulder to get in the center lane to turn left onto Atascocita Shores Drive.

At the start I needed 24 miles to hit 200 for the week and the 33.32 miles I biked pushed me over that with 209.75. March is up to 172.09 miles, 26% of the way to my 650 mile goal. According to my SportTracks log this is the first time using this route in 2022.

March wind arrived for the bike ride this morning. 18 mph with 25 mph gusts at the start meant a headwind until I reached FM 2100. By the time I finished at 12:50 PM the wind speed dropped to 14 mph with 23 mph gusts. The hardest time was going west over Lake Houston. The wind gusts kept pushing the bike to the right with the crosswind. One drawback to 50mm rims, they catch the wind. It wasn’t like that riding east because the concrete barrier to my right block some of the wind.

I tried a new kit combination wearing shorts, a short sleeve jersey with a red long sleeve performance fabric T-shirt underneath. The sleeves were about an inch shorter than I prefer but better than too long sleeves some Pearl Izumi jerseys had. Not having a zipper on the T-shirt kept the heat in which came in handy as I rode across Lake Houston with the cool wind blowing. Overall I’m pleased and the T-shirt was worth the $12.50 it cost. I will use the combination again, maybe tomorrow when it should be about 80 degrees.

Four other cyclists crossed my route, more than I expected with the 10:14 start time.

The Cervelo continues to please me. It rode quietly as I pedaled only making sounds when I coasted from the rear when as the ratchet whirled. I didn’t shift much because the route is pretty flat. I need to get used to thinking of situations to shift that previously I didn’t bother to because of the effort. The eTap system shifts quickly. I shifted one time while stopped and when I started pedaling the gear changed quickly without missing a beat. Link to the AXS.SRAM.com ride report. According to the ride report I shifted the rear derailleur 13 times during the ride. I rode in the rear 15T gear for 2:03:03. Data, data, data!

Today’s bike ride weather: start 74 (humidity 80%, dew point 68), mostly cloudy, wind S 18 mph gusts 25 mph; finish 80 (humidity 64%, dew point 67), partly cloudy, wind S 14 mph gusts 23 mph.