Wow. Today was quite possibly the best ride I've had this year. In terms of concentration, weather, and good legs. The weather was nice and cool, 60's, clear skies, winds from the north. I wore 1 base layer. The ride started out modest. My legs felt fresh from the beginning. By the time I made it to the end of OTR, I was sufficiently warmed up. The winds were somewhat of a cross tail. I started the first 1 mile leg moderate, picked up the pace a bit over the top. I kept a good tempo until I realized that the wind was in my favor by a big factor. After about the first mile past the summit, I put the pace into overdrive. I was doing strong tempo for a good 5 miles till I reached Willow Springs. I haven't checked the metric yet, but I'm guessing I averaged at least 24mph on the 7 mile outbound leg. When I reached the end of Highline, I decided to do some recon in order to plan for a ride into the wind-farm region. Willow Springs didn't have a safe place to park. I took a left (west) on Tehachapi Blvd and another left on Steuber Rd. There's a place with next to a motel that has a business structure that had some parking. The motel had signs warning against parking in their property. The only other place I can think of is a church not too far from Steuber and Highline. More investigating on the next ride. After doing my recon, I started the trek back home. I had a fierce headwind, so I decided to put it into cruise control and keep the tempo moderate. After reaching the end of Highline, the remainder of the ride was mostly fun and games. Concentration was real good today, pretty much no gremlins as well. Balance was good. I had to lean into the wind on many occasions, so that offset my balance by a small margin. Ailments consisted of slight, left knee soreness, left lower back soreness, and hip soreness (which was the greater of the three). Gear is working perfect. No problems there. Other notes, I saw 2 cyclists as I was about to turn onto OTR on the outbound leg.