I watched the GP de Denain race from France while eating breakfast. The race had 17 sections of cobbles and a bunch of crashes. One rider on the Team Arkea Samsic broke his handle bar leaving the left brake lever dangling by the bar tape. Apparently he changed bikes and broke the handle bar on the right side dangling the brake lever. He had mud on his shorts making for a rough ride. Fortunately he didn’t appear to be hurt. I don’t think I would ride with that problem.

My bike ride had some challenges but not of that type. Mine was the weather. It changed from yesterday’s sunny and light wind to overcast and very strong wind. The ride began at 10:38 AM on my Cervelo Caledonia. I set out to ride the Atascocita – Walden – Spanish Cove route but when I arrived at the Chevron station on FM 1960 at Atascocita Shores Drive the sky looked threatening so I decided to change to the Atascocita – E Lake Houston Parkway route which makes a u-turn at E Lake Houston Parkway back to Kingwood. But as I came to Fairlake Lane I changed my mind because the sky didn’t look quite as threatening so I switched to the Atascocita – Walden – Huffman route. This also eliminated biking south into the very strong headwind to Spanish Cove on FM 2100. I was glad for the change as I battled the wind riding south on Fairlake Lane. At FM 2100 turning left put the wind at my back all the way to FM 1960 in Huffman. I wondered how hard riding back across Lake Houston would be with nothing breaking the wind except passing traffic.

As I approached the east side of the lake on FM 1960 the wind from the south was strong but not as bad as I expected. But the farther out over the water I rode the strong wind gusts pushed my bike around at will. My strong grip got me back on tracks to the west side where the opening under the causeway allowed the wind gusts to come full force. The turn onto Atascocita Shores Drive came at the right time changing to a mostly tailwind. All was good until I cross the San Jacinto River on W Lake Houston Parkway when a light mist started. The weather forecast said rain might start around 2 PM and that was about an hour away. The mist resisted until I finished the ride at 1:20 PM. About 15 minutes after the finish it rained .02″ which would have been enough to soak me. Good thing I didn’t ride to Spanish Cove.

Weather conditions: start 71 degrees, 80% humidity, dew point 65, overcast, wind S 10 mph; finish 71 degrees, dew point 66, overcast, wind S 18 mph gust 31 mph.

With today’s ride I need 225 miles to reach my 650 mile goal for March.

Yesterday I moved the GoPro mount on the Cervelo to a new position on the right of the Bolt computer. This would put it in the same position as the Lynskey Helix bike. I flipped the K-Edge mount over to bend to the right and moved the Garmin mount from the bottom to the top. Since I’m right handed this put the GoPro closer. I think this worked good during the ride. These photos show the new position.