Brain Strained, Reversed Route Looks Different
For most of my rides when I choose the route I don’t have to think too much about which direction and streets will be in the ride because of the number of times I rode them. Today I challenged my brain with the route. I took my Atascocita – Huffman – Walden route and reversed as many chunks of it that I could. To differentiate I made the route name Atascocita – Huffman – Walden Reverse. I would guess that about 40% of of the ride was in the reverse direction. Some of the streets I’ve never rode in reverse but most I have at one or another.
The first reverse section came at the start of the ride and continued until I got to Kings Harbor at W. Lake Houston. Because there is only one way to cross the bridge that limited reversing. From Kings Harbor to Fairlake Lane I was back on the usual roads. At Fairlake Lane I stayed on FM 1960 to FM 2100, south on FM 2100 to Old Atascocita Road and turned west. Old Atascocita Road and Fairlake Lane took me back to FM 1960. That was all in reverse of my usual Saturday ride. FM 1960 west, south through Walden, north back to Kingwood was in the usual direction. When I got to Kingwood Greens I turned left and that began the next section of reversed biking. The reverse direction took me from there to the end of the ride. In Bear Branch I had to think because I never rode the side streets in reverse and knowing which side street wasn’t a dead end. I started the ride at 10:15 AM and finished at 12:55 PM.
The reverse on FM 2100 brought me a Strava 2nd fastest time on Huffman to Old Atascocita Rd (3:21). I lost the local legend on another segment though.
The 10:15 start time wasn’t too late to see other cyclists. I think I caught all of them in the video. I waved at the driver of a car with a bike on the rear rack on Fairlake Lane when we passed.
To help with all of this brain work I watched the women’s and men’s TELENET SUPERPRESTIGE GULLEGEM UCI C2 CYCLOCROSS races. This gave the weather time to settle into a good range for my ride.
Weather at the start and finish of my ride: start 71, humidity 84%, dew point 66, mostly cloudy, wind SE 4 mph; finish 78, humidity 64%, dew point 65, mostly cloudy, wind SW 7 mph. I wore my new Voler wind jacket.