Wednesday: Ninigret No 1

Yesterday's ride was such a technical decision.. Winds gusting out of the southwest meant that I needed to ride down towards Ninigret.. where the first Wed night crit of the year was scheduled for 6:30.. Problem being it's too cold to ride out there, race and ride back.. not to mention dark. Additionally, the winds were scheduled to shift and blow from the Northeast at some point in the afternoon.. and 50% chance of showers was predicted for the evening.. I wanted to do a solid 3 hours, and I also wanted to race.. but better to keep my money and just get the volume over with before the wind shifted, before the rain arrived, before it got dark, and before I froze my ass off. Thusly, I decided to hit the road at 3:00 pm and ride down Route 2 all the way to Route 1 and head north back to my house. Instead of jumping onto 1A in Narragansett, I continued north on Route 1, even with the heavy traffic, it's the better choice because it's faster and the shoulder is very wide and safe. This knocked about 4 miles off my usual 60 miler and I ended up doing exactly three hours- about 56 miles. The winds heading down were such that I averaged only 15 mph by the time I reached Route 1. On the way back though- I averaged it back up to 18.5 by easily going 25+ mph the whole way home.
I wonder who won at Ninigret? That wind must not have been too much fun, lap after lap after lap.
Thanks for reading.