The wind wore me down on today’s bike ride. One thing Zwift doesn’t simulate is wind. I rode great on the way to Tavola but the return to Kingwood featured a 14 mph SE headwind. My legs handled it for awhile but slowly my overall average speed fell from 13.9 mph to 13.2 mph by the time I finished at 2:50 PM.

The bike ride began at 11:54 AM as I rode out the driveway on my Lynskey R300 bike. This is the first outdoor bike ride in February and I wanted to make up the miles I fell behind toward my 400 mile goal for the month. I need to average 14.3 miles per day to hit my goal. Headed north on my “New Caney – Tavola – Valley Ranch” route this usually is a 34+ mile bike ride. Today I rode 35.14 miles.

I waited for the temperature to go up a degree or two before getting ready. It still felt chilly at the start even though I wore shorts, leg warmers, a long sleeve thermal jersey, windbreaker jacket, and half finger gloves. Whenever I was in the shade I felt the coolness and the wind seemed to emphasize it. Weather conditions: start 65 (59% humidity, 50.6 dew point), partly cloudy, wind SE 12 mph; finish 67 (58% humidity, 51.4 dew point), mostly cloudy, wind SE14 mph. The forecast dangled a high of 71 but I don’t think it ever made it. Tomorrow the forecast says 80 is possible. I will be riding much warmer then.

Strava said today’s bike ride was harder than my usual efforts. I think fighting the headwind contributed to that.

The ride summary data in Golden Cheetah looks like this.

49% of the riding time was in power zones 1 and 2 leaving 51% for zones 3 through 7. Average power came in at 107 watts with a max of 439 watts.