Somewhat improved

On Wednesday, we went for another ride. The weather outside looked absolutely gorgeous and I couldn't hear the typical swoosh-swoosh of our Oklahoma winds. We drove to our new launching point there was still no winds. I kept thinking that my numbers would be vastly improved without the winds slowing me down. Of course, Oklahoma was just playing a nasty trick on me because as soon as we got to our launching point, the winds picked up. While Bret put the bikes together, I took Liam over to the play structure for a few moments.

In the beginning of our ride, the winds had died down again and my cadence was fantastic. I was averaging 15 miles per hour and even got up to 16.6. We zig-zagged our way around a portion of Bixby. We wanted to look at a house that we found for sale on a local real estate website. We then zig-zagged our way back around other parts of Bixby trying to get some mileage on. I figured that I wanted to ride about 15 miles. Of course by this time, the winds were picking up again and causing a real strain on my cadence. Even though I was pushing above 12 mph for much of the ride, the winds caused so much hell on my pedaling. We were cycling our way down a quiet, windy Mingo Road when a black lab mix ran out to say hi to Bret. I was in back and noticed that the dog was limping a little bit. I wasn't sure if the dog had hurt herself trying to run out to us so I stopped to see. I couldn't see anything wrong with her and put out my hand for her to sniff. Apparently, I passed her test because she licked my hand like mad and then stood up to try to give me a hug. After a few more minutes of scratching her, I went back to pedaling. I did a quick check on my Bell computer to see where I was averaging: 9.9 mph. I was happy that my speeds had increased from Easter Sunday.

We started riding back to our launch point a few moments after this and I realized that there was a giant hill soon in the distance. I tried pedaling as much as I could and realized that if I had to stop to walk up it, then unfortunately, that's what I had to do. I walked up the rest of the hill and grumbled the entire way up. After I got to the top of the hill, I rode back down still grumbling to myself that I had to walk. The winds were incredibly tense while we were riding back and it made pedaling hurt. I could tell that Bret was even having problems trying to ride in them. Unfortunately, the winds got so intense that both of our cadences were subpar as were our mph speeds.

I guess I really need to learn how to ride in both the wind and stupid hills.