Week 9:
In a word, wind. Steve struggled all week with consistently strong winds day, and unusually, night. Saturday went well riding with Matt, fast and long. Then he changed tactics. To try and avoid the wind Steve has ridden right through the night twice this week and as a result
my spreadsheet only shows 5 'Steve Days' for the seven calendar day period. Did it work? Yes and no. This is what his 5 efforts over 7 days look like:
Sunday was fast but short from a midday start, Monday's slog home was slow. The payback for the overnighter was a long rest Monday night. With that rest he was able on Tuesday to cut his time off the bike while out much lower than usual and add an extra 45 minutes to his active period too. After 4 days / 3 efforts his average was 217.7 which is bang on typical and he'd only had to endure the wind one day.
Despite being home at 8 on Tuesday he didn't start until 10:00 on Wednesday, 14 hours rest was 2 more than he took after the first overnight. He rode his usual pace and stopped at his usual time and so had a low total for the day. His speed on Thursday was way down, wrong route choice for the winds I think. He was at usual pace on Friday but couldn't put his usual time in.
As a result of all that his average for the week was 211.3 mpd.
