The delightful sound of gravel crunching under your tires juxtaposed against the cacophony of a howling headwind - a tale of two rides. My ribs felt better yesterday and when I got up today the felt better still so I thought I'd do something easy to see how I'd feel on the bike as well as testing my legs with the shorter cranks. After Saturday's ride on the Tarmac, I came to the conclusion that the pedal width/stance is the same. I think what's going on is that I've just been so used to riding 170s and my legs have adapted to it. Even though on paper 155mm cranks is what I should be riding it's recruiting a different group of muscles and not using the ones I've strengthened from all those years of 170mm crank riding. I don't feel like I have as much strength and I'm feeling the weakness/strain most from my inner quads and hamstrings. The level of fatigue in the muscles when I look at how far I've ridden seems equivalent to at least double that amount. I suppose the one good thing about today is the fatigue seemed to plateau sooner and didn't drop as far as it did at Huffmaster. Hopefully that means it won't take to long to adapt to the shorter cranks and I'll be back to full power soon. There were a couple bumpy sections that my ribs didn't like but overall I felt pretty good. It was hard to take in large, full breaths, on the climbs which I didn't even consider when planning the route. Luckily it was mostly flat. Fortunately the headwind wasn't too bad. The worst section was heading out to the levee but the amazing tailwind back to Dumbarton made it all worth it. I don't know if it was actually smooth or I was going so fast that I just floated over it all. There were a couple sections when I turned away from the tailwind and slowed down and those sections seemed bumpy. Coincidence? It was pretty hot out but the wind had a nice cooling effect. Mostly I just made the route up as I went along and took the trails that felt right to take. I ended up checking out some new stuff.