My attempt to start the ride before 9 AM was short lived with today rolling away at 9:08 AM on my Lynskey Helix bike. The weather forecast mentioned the possibility of rain so I wanted to get my ride in before that happened and I finished at 12:05 PM with 34.48 miles. The third time biking this route the mileage was in the middle of the previous two rides. The route is what I call “Community Drive – Cumberland – Oakhurst” which goes west out of Kingwood to US59, north along US59 to Community Drive where I cross over the freeway to head south and into Valley Ranch. In Valley Ranch I moved to side streets taking me to Forest Colony and then through the Azalea District before emerging onto Valley Ranch Parkway and then to FM 1314. Riding to the NW on FM 1314 I make the turnaround at Cumberland Blvd. with a short ride into Cumberland and back to FM 1314 going SE to Old Sorters Road. Through Briar Tree and Oakhurst I did not go south on Rock Creek to Northpark, instead I turned left onto Bentwood Oaks Drive to avoid the dogs at Northpark. Biking the frontage road south to Kingwood Drive I made the u-turn under US59 going north and into Kings Manor and returning to Kingwood. As usual the profile is rather flat with the only climb going up to the SH 99 overpass at Community Drive, the little spike on the map profile below around 12 miles.

This brought my week’s total to 183.99 miles putting a 200 mile week a mere 16 miles away. I don’t know why I didn’t ride that 1 hundredth of mile to make it an even 184 miles. Two days left in the week to ride those 16 miles. Sounds easy but the forecast again talks about rain on Saturday.

The 45×33 and 10×36 gears on my Lynskey bike are a little lower than the Cervelo and it takes longer to get my average speed up to 13 mph. The wheels turn easy but the speed is lower than necessary. I need to think about using the 33×12 as the set for riding instead of the 33×13. Checking my AXS.SRAM ride report I saw that I used the 33×13 for 1:49:16 out of the total riding time of 2:37:12 which left about 48 minutes for the other gears used. I only made 11 RD shifts which seems to say that once I shifted to the 33×13 I stayed there.

That weather with rain was to the southeast when I finished the ride and after I was inside I heard a few drops hitting on the metal chimney cover but that was about all it did. I avoided getting wet from rain. The clouds held the temperature a few degrees lower than yesterday’s ride. The wind was light not posing much of an issue. Weather conditions: start 86 (humidity 74%, dew point 77), mostly cloudy, wind S 5 mph; finish 91 (humidity 52%, dew point 71), mostly cloudy, wind N 0 mph.