Feel like what?

11 miles
46 degrees
29 mph winds

I was cold in the office this morning and I really debated whether or not to go for a ride today so I looked up the weather on the internet. Although it said there were 29 mph winds out, the temperature was 46 degrees so very much like yesterday's ride. The weather site also said it feels like 46 degrees, even with 29 mph winds. What happened to the wind chill factor? Anyway, I decided to go out and see if it really feels like 46 degrees with the wind blowing. Well, it doesn't. Add on my 10 mph (I know, but I was riding into a 29 mph headwind) for 40 mph winds and I was getting pretty cold.

Despite (or because of) the wind, I decided ride up the rims on 27th Street and out Airport Road into the wind as far as I could go in my lunch break. I have to admit that it was not enjoyable. It felt like a bad spin class where the instructor keeps yelling "Add it on" without any kind of recovery. I finally hit five miles on my speedometer and figured I'd had enough. I turned around and suddenly the world fell silent. No more wind howling wind in my ears. Even hauling down Airport Road at 35 mph, I couldn't feel any wind. Let me tell you, its pretty cool to effortlessly fly down a flat road a 35 mph. I quickly hit 27th Street to drop back down the rims. Without pedaling I hit 42 mph. The rest of the ride was a cinch, except for the moron who stopped in the middle of the road to let me cross instead of letting me slip behind him. Nice gesture, but he held me up long enough that the other vehicles were quickly approaching and put me in a bad situation. I wish drivers would just treat cyclists like all other vehicles because when they don't they put cyclists and other drivers in danger.