The bikes got a bath before I set out on today’s bike ride. The water was pretty dirty afterwards and it might’ve lightened the Cervelo for today’s ride. I was going to need all of the help I could get for the ride. I was late getting out the door pressing the Bolt start button at 9:51 AM. To make for some of the miles I didn’t ride earlier in the week I decided to ride the Kingwood – Stroker Road – Kingwood route. I changed the order of the streets some riding on Kings River and Atascocita Shores to get to FM 1960 rather than on the way back. This meant riding through Walden on the return to Kingwood. I almost rode south on FM 2100 to Stroker Road to ride in reverse but I stuck to the plan and finished at 1:30 PM. This was the 5th bike ride to Stroker Road in 2022 and the 42.91 miles was below the average distance of the other 4 rides. If I had biked another 1.4 miles I would have reached my 651 mile goal for October. Next ride should take care of that. With the change in the streets I decided to not call the route Stroker Road – Huffman.

Road construction on FM 2100 north of Stroker Road moved me to the unopened south bound lanes from Stroker Road to the Crawfish Kings on the other side where I changed sides all the way to Huffman. At Huffman after I crossed the railroad tracks I started hearing this strange sound from my Galaxy 5 Pro smart watch. It showed the “I have fallen” alert with a countdown to sending a text message to my daughters. I tried to cancel that but it wouldn’t let me and sent the texts messages. I wasn’t sure what their reaction would be. I finally got it cleared and resumed my ride. Not too long after that one daughter called me but I didn’t answer because of the traffic noise. I pulled into a shopping center and answered when she called again. My other daughter sent me a text message which I answered telling her what happened. I’m not sure why the watch decided I had fallen. I rode over those tracks many times and with no alert. Maybe the railroad tracks and stopping for the light triggered it.

At the start of the ride the wind was around 5 mph but as I rode it seemed to increase. I noticed it more as I rode to FM 1960 on Kings River Drive and Atascocita Shores. Going over Lake Houston on FM 1960 the gusts from my right signaled the wind had increased. The weather forecast said the wind could 25 mph after the morning. I was okay riding east but when I turned south from Old Atascocita Road onto Ramsey Road the wind was so strong I shifted from the 35×13 gears to the 35×15 gears. With the change the wind was so strong I could only pedal at 8 to 9 mph until I neared Peters Road where a bunch of trees blocked some of the wind. Once I cleared the trees the wind came back with a vengeance. On Stroker Road the wind was from my left with sporadic trees interfering with it. When I reached FM 2100 the wind pushed me north all the way to FM 1960 but the ride west the wind wanted to push me around especially as I crossed Lake Houston. Riding to and through Walden the wind tried to get me. The 50mm rims were a target for the wind to move me around. On Pinehurst Trail Drive my direction changed to mostly north and the wind was from my left or rear the rest of the way. At the end of the ride I saw the wind was 15 mph with 27 mph gusts. No wonder the hard pedaling.

I stopped on Ramsey Road to answer a text message and took this photo. It also gave my legs a short break from the headwind.

Weather conditions: start 76 (humidity 67%, dew point 64), mostly clear, wind S 5 mph; finish 84 (humidity 46%, dew point 61), partly cloudy, wind S 15 mph gusts 27 mph.