Bob Dopolina 

1. I rode the wrong way into the Mistrals in France. I had to fight to keep moving on a long downhill. I could have walked faster.

2. I did a crit somewhere in Ontario that was so windy I rode ON TOP of the curb to get draft. Two hours after our race a Tornado touched down a few km away from where we had been.

bbattle

It was so windy these cows got into a paceline.



I was unfortunate to be leading a group into a strong (+20mph) headwind. Even though I was only managing 10mph, the other riders said I was doing great, keep going.

Does anyone have the link to those young Belgian or Dutch riders out on a training ride when it was so windy they had to shelter beside the car in order to get on the bike and start off?

Tickstart

I live in the arctic, and yeah the winds can be pretty strong at times (all the time). Once I was going downhill, on the lowest gear, out of the saddle, and was thinking of giving up. And another thing, I thought it was impossible for winds to blow in all directions at the same time. Not so here, if you turn around, the wind immediately changes. Makes it quite boring to go for a ride to be honest, sure it's good exercise but you still want to feel the speed SOMETIMES.Once though, I went through the city, and ironically near the police station I caught a gust of wind, I don't have a bicycle computer but I'm sure I broke the speed limit on the road there. Must've been doing at least 200km/h.

kbarch

Growing up in windy places, I came to see 'strong' wind as 30 mph or greater. 20mph winds were just annoying.

Worst experience with wind on two wheels wasn't with a bike, but a motorcycle. Crossing the Verrazano Narrows bridge in a 40mph perpendicular crosswind. The worst part was that the structure created lees, so you'd go from blasted to relieved to blasted again - like being yanked back and forth - as you went along. It was terrifying.

CafeVelo

^this. In Ohio it's all about learning to ride in the wind. Terrain is flat and often completely open. When you get any hills its a river valley with a decent wind current of its own. Most days have a sustained wind of at least 8 mph, but it usually ends up closer to 15-20 most of the year. When it's a windy day here its a 35+mph sustained wind. I'll still ride, but I'll be grinding.

djb

I camped in the Luberon area for a few weeks one summer and this was my first experience with the Mistral wind...boy was it something so I can sympathize. I was there with my family and some French friends, car camping, but between the heat wave of days of 40, 41, 42c and then later the Mistral, I figured it was not a good time of the year to bike tour around there. A couple biked in one evening and looked totally baked, I felt sorry for them.
Guess the fall would be better.

djb

On a bike tour in the Pyrenees, my touring pal and I went through some Gorge of somethingorother, cant recall name, but the changing side gusts were pretty darn scarey because the road was narrow, the dropoffs pretty much vertical, and the "guardrails" were just blocks of stone that were very very low, and being moved around on a loaded touring bike along that road was pretty unnerving.

JohnnyCyclist

I can't top the best stories here, but I remember a day where my speed on flat ground ranged from 8mph to 30mph (depending on which direction the wind was coming from, of course).

Shimagnolo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8qgjyqibwY

Hypno Toad

The worse wind I've ever biked was last June on the Weststide Dirty Benjamin (gravel century); winds got over 40 mph with gusts near 60 mph. I was looking up a line of about 8 riders when wind was coming from our right, looked like everybody was leaning into a fast turn... but they were crawling up a straight road. Every time you'd get a tree windbreak, it was everything you could do to control the bike when the wind dropped off. I recall looking forward to the route turning, giving us a tailwind; however, that was too much wind to enjoy as a tailwind (shocked). Gratefully, the winds didn't stay at those speeds, it settled down to just 'windy' at 20 to 30 mph. Because this is a gravel ride, there was no traffic to deal with - if this ride was on busy roads, I'd have quit.

Last month I was biking around Lake Minnetonka (big lake), and didn't think about the big winds becoming a dangerous crosswind as I rounded the lake. The wind was coming off the lake on my right with a busy road on my left. I unclipped a number of times to keep my balance, I quickly re-routed to get off the busy road. Gusts were around 40 mph. That was stressful.

banerjek

60mph sustained tailwind in a storm that made national news some years back. Not nearly as fun as it sounds.

The good news: spinning out in 53/11 with panniers on the flats and climbing grades at over 30mph
The bad news: there's no such thing as a truly straight wind so gust, eddies, etc made it really hard to hang on

I've also been in cross and headwinds over 50mph -- even in 30/27 (I rode a triple at the time), I was suffering. You really get tossed around. When I was doing that, every car that passed me offered assistance. It's not a smart time to be out since debris is flying around and large branches are coming down, but it still was fun.

djb

wow, a 50/12 spins out for me at about 75-77kph so that must have pretty damn fast, Im guessing 90k or more.
Im pretty comfortable going fast, but that must have been unnerving, wondering if the wind would shift or do a weird eddy thing at that speed (I would have gone for it anyway, cant pass up a situation like that)

banerjek

It's some of the scariest high speed riding I've ever done, second only to a death wobble at 45mph. Even though I had 20 miles to play with, I only did it for a short time. Like you, I couldn't bear to not seize the moment, but I wound up dropping to a speed that was much easier to hold onto.

JerrySTL

Flat and level. No trees. Heading west towards the Mississippi River valley near St. Louis. Had to drop into my triple's granny gear to keep moving. Weather stations reported gusts into the 50 mph range plus I think the wind coming up the bluffs might have created something like a Bernoulli effect. Once I got to the downhill, I still could only go about 15 mph while pedaling where it was a 10% grade downhill.

banerjek

One of the neat effects I've noticed when cycling along the Oregon Coast is that the wind climbs the Coast Range as it encounters it. As a practical effect, this means you get a push going uphill and it slows you going downhill. Overall, a good trade.

Jiggle

It was SO windy that.....I stayed home and got some work done.