Old 07-16-10 | 01:26 AM
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davids0507
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Joined: Jun 2008
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Question about rotating pacelines in changing wind

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum... And it's probably a dumb question but it's been bothering me.

This probably won't come up too often, but the local hammer ride goes around a loop a mile or two long (no traffic, two lanes open in our direction) with two 90-degree turns (the other 180 degrees are extremely gradual). The turns are so gradual and the loop is so big that rotating pacelines are easy to form. It's often windy. So we've been practicing rotating pacelines, and there always seems to be a hitch when we go around the corner and the wind blows from the opposite direction (from the left versus from the right).

Obviously we're supposed to start rotating in the opposite direction, but how exactly should this happen? If the double rotating paceline has a fast lane and a slow lane,
1. Should the slow lane now become the fast lane (and the poor guy who just pulled off to the left now has to do twice the work and pull off to the right)?
Or
2. Should the fast lane stay the fast lane and a new slow lane form to the other side of it (as guys just start pulling off to the other side instead)?

The more experienced guys seem to think it's #1 (although when the "experienced" guy shows up with goddamn headphones you tend not to trust his opinion), but if that one guy in front was just barely hanging on, he sometimes really struggles to take that second pull as we reverse directions, because he's been exposed to the wind for a long time. So I think #2 would be better, because it gives the guy who just rotated a chance to recover (and making his problems worse is the guy in the fast lane who was just sheltered and doesn't think to slow down). This normally wouldn't be a big deal, but if it happens twice a lap it gets annoying.

Make sense? Thoughts?
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