Today's ride was long and hard. We had a headwind blowing strong all day. It didn't relent. So we pedaled hard and steady. It took us nearly eight hours on the bike to go our 102 miles.

We have developed a pretty good routine. We have found Super 8 motels to be reasonably priced, clean, everywhere and usually with high speed internet. Today's ride was from Super 8 in Geneseo to Super 8 in Morris. We started with our usual continental breakfast, packed the van and headed out.

We do several stops during the day, meeting with the van to get water and lots of Gatorade. I eat four or five Clif bars each day and a ham or roast beef sandwich around noon. I tend to eat something every 60-90 minutes and usually eat my Clif bar while pedaling. I also drink lots of water, trying to get down 16 ounces each hour. They have nicknamed me Whiz Kid because I also get rid of all that water several times a day.

The three of us have different riding styles. I'm a spinner. I pedal fast in a lower gear. I find that I expend less energy by having a higher cadence (the speed at which the pedals go around). I try to keep my cadence at 85 to 95 revolutions per minute. Lance Armstrong made spinning popular and made all the Europeans mad by doing it. He typically spins at around 120. I start literally bouncing in my seat while I spin over 105.

Dan hammers. He can push hard at a slower cadence and we go about the same speed. When riding on flats, we go about 16-18 MPH. Dan is quite strong and hammering works best for him.

Nicole is in the middle. She is learning to spin on the hills and still have enough power to keep her speed up. Her cadence is lower than mine and higher than Dan's.

Today, spinning just didn't work for me. The strong headwind kept me from keeping up any speed while maintaining my desired cadence and heart rate. I monitor everything I am doing while riding. I have a Polar cycling heart rate monitor which tells me my heart rate, speed, cadence, distance, calories burned and it computes averages and lots of details. I keep a pretty constant watch on my heart rate and cadence.

I have a naturally low heart rate, under 50 beats per minute at rest. In training, I aimed to keep it about 110, hopefully around 120 and under 145. During this trip, I have been able to keep it in the 85-90 range and only going up to 120 when climbing. That means I am being pretty efficient in my riding and not burning nearly as much energy as I thought I would. I haven't had a day where I burned over 1,700 calories and I thought I would have 3,000 calorie days.

Today I burned 1,047 calories while hamming into the wind. Yesterday, spinning without the headwind took 498 calories to go the 102 miles.

Tomorrow, I'm hoping for no wind and getting back to spinning.

A fun decoration on a rural garage.

Matching yellow bike and trike always makes a good planter.

Don't stop, but be sure to yield.