"I Say To The Wind . . . ."
 

"I Say To The Wind . . . ."

Weather records show that I was riding directly into a 24 mph head wind with gusts to 33 mph this morning, while also going up a slight incline, for the first half of my ride.

Wow, does that take it out of you.

For one hour, I keep saying to myself, "This is good for you. This is excellent training." And the ride back was fun. But, I don't REALLY enjoy it! Do you?

02 11:53 S 24 G 32 10.00 Mostly Cloudy and Breezy SCT060 BKN120 BKN240 61 47 62 49 29.98 1011.4
02 10:53 S 24 G 33 10.00 Partly Cloudy and Breezy FEW060 SCT120 SCT240 60 46 30.00 1012.1
02 09:53 S 24 G 28 10.00 Mostly Cloudy and Breezy FEW060 SCT120 BKN240 59 47 30.01 1012.2

This time of year I run into this a lot on the coast when we can have some pretty stout winds and gusts coming out of the N/NW. Since I live at the north end of town, my rides seem to gravitate toward the south and back again. That "back again" part puts me right in it and up some low, steady inclines.
Fun? I don't know if it's fun but I do take on an adversarial approach, thrusting a metaphorical single digit into the air. OK, wind, it's just me and you... bring it on. It's work, for sure but in the end, when it doesn't beat me and I take that last flat loop around toward home with the wind at my back, I feel pretty darned good.

Every day 15mph steady with 20-25mph gusts. I am so worn out by Friday that I have a tough time geting motivated. Clearly something is different down here this year and maybe this has to do with the drought we are in. I get 50% of my ride at 23mph and 50% of my ride at 17mph and believe me I would prefer a nice even pace for the whole thing with no wind. I know it is helping my conditioning but it is a real negative on my mental motivation.

It has been that way all spring here in Boston. A pretty constant N/NE wind off the water. In fact on my Sunday ride it was so strong I had to pedal downhill just to maintain 15mph. This is a hill I can normally hit 22mph just coasting.

I really dislike riding into the wind. Worst of all, is we have a lot of false flats that are a 1-2% grade here, and it seems the wind is always a headwind on them, and after 10 miles I feel like I a so grossly out of shape that I'll never get into shape. Yea, I dislike the wind.

Wind sucks... er, uhh... wind blows. Yeah, I hate wind. Everybody likes to get behind me because I have wide, uh, shoulders. That's my story and I'm stickin' with it.

I dislike headwinds, but I LOVE Tailwinds on my Recumbent. With that big old seat making a sail, it makes the speeds I'm going seem so easy!

Chris

I would rather ride in the wind than in the rain, and that is what it is doing today... I do "enjoy", if that is the word, riding into the wind on the first part of my ride knowing that it will be easy coming home... ... .. ....peace

Bike riding is like life....mostly uphill and into the wind.

What really sucks is when you ride out into a headwind, knowing you're going to have a nice tailwind on the way home and the wind changes on you. That's happened here several times lately with fronts moving through. That's when you know you can't have NUTHIN.

Grr!

And I thought I was bike riding to get AWAY from "life."

When I ride into a strong headwind, I like to shout "Pshaw!" while having an internal debate about whether the 'p' is silent, and wondering whether anyone actually ever used that expression.

I guess I'm going crazy, but I've been riding into so much wind, that I'm starting to like it, and I really like the other side, going down wind.

"No one knoweth wither the wind comest or wither it goeth, except I knoweth that wither I ride into it things really start to, well, wither I guess."

Just got back from my daily ride, we are under a wind advisory, 30mph winds and gusts up to 45mph. I almost didn't go but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be as temp in the 60's.

What I say to the wind does not bear repeating in polite company:mad:

I know that on a ride along the Cape Cod Canal my wife and I did a 7 mile southerly leg into the teeth of a 25 mph wind. I suffered. My wife was riding a single speed upright cruiser bike. What whe would have said about the wind would have made a dockworker blush. (Some of it was pointed in my direction for bringing her on the trip)

Then there was the return trip. My wife, sitting upright behind her large wicker basket handlebar rack with a fake Toto sticking its head up, was peddling fast and laughing all the way. She was getting ready to spread her arms and jacket out and sail all the way.

[QUOTE=DnvrFox]"I Say To The Wind . . . ."

QUOTE]
I live in N.Central Tx. and I don't think the mods would tolerate what I say to the wind.:eek:

The one thing I enjoyed about cycling through the winter was that generally the winds didn't do that. They were relentlessly from the west, except for the occassional nor'easter.

With warm weather again, here on the cloudy south shore of Lake Ontario, the daily land breeze/sea breeze cycle will start. I'm close enough to the lake that most of the time the land/sea breeze overcomes the prevailing westerlies.

Wind flows from the cool land to the warm water (south to north) in the morning. In the afternoon, it switches blowing from the cool water to the warm land, (north to south). My commute is exactly the reverse of the land/sea breeze.

On the other hand, it guarantees and nice cool headwind on those hot and sticky July afternoon commutes home.

Edit: And of course, in the mornings, it's uphill from the lake into that land breeze.