Wind.

Since moving from Northern England to Nortern Scotland we now definitely live in a windy area. The prevailing winds still blow from the south west but they are stronger. The relative lack of tree cover also leaves me more exposed to the breeze.

I don’t have an accurate wind speeds for my ride yesterday but imagine that it would have been around 15 mph or 25 kph, blowing from the west. I rode the nearly level route along the seafront from our village to the town of Banff. I only recorded a rise of 35 feet in the entire ride of over 5 miles, so any difference in performance in each direction was solely due to the wind.

Early on, travelling eastwards with the wind behind me, I was tiring myself through too much effort, so backed off a little. When I returned home I found that I’d been setting some fastest ever segment times with relatively little effort.

What is clear to see is that my outward journey averaged around 12 mph whilst the return was at a lowly 8 mph, just due to the effect of the wind. On one return segment I needed 50% longer than on other recent tries.

I was quite pleased to average 10.1 mph, the same as my last attempt, despite the windy conditions. All I need to do now is train to improve my speed. I don’t expect to ever return to my pre heart surgery level of fitness, when I would have expected to achieve an average over 15 mph, even on a mountain bike. I’m not worried by this and just want to get out more often to improve my current abilities.