The energy cost to overcome wind resistance increases with the square of the velocity.  It takes you four times as much energy to overcome a 10 MPH wind as it does to overcome a 5 MPH wind.  Today we were bucking a 20 to 30 MPH headwind from the start.

Frank didn’t roll out with us this morning because his knee was in very bad shape.  Craig and I took off from the hotel in Kenedy at just a little after 6:00.  The first 30 miles of the ride is through rolling hills that are a little steeper than yesterday’s hills.  The wind was so strong that we had to pedal on the downhill stretches, too.  It didn’t take us long to decide that, if we finished the ride today, we would have no energy for tomorrow.  So we called it a day at 40 miles.

I have mixed feelings about doing only 40 of the 105 miles, but mostly I feel good that I had the brains to make that decision.  Had we finished the ride today (sustained winds this afternoon were over 30 MPH, with gusts above 35 MPH), we would have been drained, and tomorrow’s ride would have been completely miserable.  As it is, we’re expecting 25 to 35 MPH winds, and we’re planning on doing only the first quarter and the last quarter of the ride.  We won’t be doing the 45 miles across the King Ranch.