Today ride was another windy ride and I guess my legs didn't fully recover from my last ride two days ago. Sid was very strong today between Sid and the wind they kicked my butt big time; at one point it had me calling out "UNCLE"! I had to slow down and regroup myself as Sid and Hercules pulled away. I don't think he knew I dropped back, Hercules noticing I was falling further back slowed down for me just as I was finally getting myself together. Hercules met up with us on the ride was a pleasant surprise, it wasn't planned, I saw a rider a ways down as we got onto RTE 322. The wind was at our backs and we had a pretty good pace going, I didn't think anyone would catch us because they would have to do over 25 mph. Well to our surprise he did it ans staying as quiet as a mouse didn't say a word. We didn't realize he was there for over 6 miles until we made a turn into the wind as Sid and I were rotating the lead. Sid said there is a rider on board with us and asked who it was. He relayed it up to me that Hercules was with us! It took me a bit to realize who he was talking about. This ride was extremely tough on me because my back started to hurt around the 20 miles out and just got worse as we went along. By the time we hit 35 miles it was screaming and just got worse especially when we were fighting the wind. When my back starts to hurt like this my heart rate jumps up to zone 4 and stays there no matter how slow or easy I go. The temperature was not bad especially for this time of year but tomorrow and the rest of the week it is supposed to get very cold and snow. I am as always happy that I did the ride and when the ride is finally over.