It was a blustery start to Day 9 of Love to Ride.

This morning, while I was outward-bound, it seemed a bit as though the Big Bad Wolf were at work. The wind was blowing at 15-16 mph; but all the same, I made some efforts to push 15 mph into the it.

I worked at one minute at a time of riding hard, for a total of six intervals. I didn\’t always reach 15 mph, but I did hit a peak speed well over 17 mph; so I guess you could say that my efforts were successful.

For a change I had a TAILwind on the way back home! I did some 30-second efforts at getting up to 17-18 mph; and managed a peak velocity of 18.47 mph!

On the one hand, my making those efforts is a good thing. I can see that I\’ve actually made some progress over the years. There was a time when hitting 15 mph even with a good tailwind was very hard. On the other hand, I’m too chicken. I suspect that I need to make those efforts more than 30-60 seconds long if I want to increase my cruising speed; and I probably need to do more of them.

It was cloudy, but it didn\’t rain. And I saw a coyote today! Maybe it’s the same one I saw almost a week ago, because it was in pretty much the same place. It\’s been quite an interesting Day 9.