realskiers

I think a lot of it is mental. In the wind in the past I've felt like I had to beat the wind; yesterday I was just focused on going where I needed to go at cadence and avoiding my legs feeling like they were working.

Both of our bikes have cassettes with a 32-28-25 big gear set -- that makes it a lot easier for me to go lower speeds and keep a higher cadence.  I'm pretty sure that coming back up and over the Assateague bridge against the wind I was in the 28 (or maybe even the 32), but it was easy pedaling.

Since I don't need 53-11 I also played some to fill in gaps that the wider range created. My cassette is currently a 13-14-15-16-17-19-22-25-28-32. I gave up the 11 for the 32 and gave up the 12 for the 16.