Headwinds OMG Headwinds!

Linda and I met in Green Mountain for our regular Friday ride. The difference from the last few rides was ... it was cooooooold, and the wind was blowing. It wasn't too terrible. We put on an additional layer of clothing and put on gloves. And off we went, as we approached Relief the wind started blowing harder and it begin to spit a little rain at us. We decided to keep going and that we would trust the weather report that said the rain wasn't coming until the evening. The wind kept increasing, but the rain did go away.

As we approached Huntdale the wind almost blew me off the road, but we kept going. We kept saying that the ride back would be easier, because we would have a tailwind. We got a little relief from the wind as we were about a mile from the end of Huntdale Road and I actually warmed up. Then we turned on Hwy 19-W we felt like we hit a wall, the headwind was so strong, we could hardly pedal against it.

We took a break at the Egypt/Ramseytown Fire Station and stretched out a little. The wind did settle down a little bit. We decided that we should head back and wait till a day that was warmer to do a longer ride. So we began the ride back. The tailwind we were expecting didn't really materialize. At least it wasn't a headwind. We turned onto Huntdale Road and it was nice to be out of the wind again.

As we approached Huntdale the wind started back up again ... one problem ... it wasn't a tailwind. The wind had shifted and we were pedaling into a strong headwind, even more than when we had come from the other direction. It seemed that each turn of the pedals brought us more headwind.

We stopped to take a break and stretch a little when we got to Relief. Then started pedaling again, we only had four miles left to get back to our cars, and the climb was over. There was one minor hill and a couple short little rises left. We were beginning to feel fatigued it was getting harder and harder to pedal against the headwind. As we were coming up the last little rise I had to drop down into my granny gear, and I shouted "This isn't a hill!" Linda shouted back "It feels like one!"

We rode up to our cars and decided that we needed to go get a cup of coffee. We did 24 miles, which is a good afternoon ride, but today it felt like we had done about 40.