Originally Posted by
BikeArkansas
This morning I was riding a group event in the flat area East of the city. The winds were fairly stong with much of the ride in a crosswind situation. Anyway, the group was over 20 riders so we were in a double pace line. I had taken my time pulling, went to the back and had rotated to within about 4 slots from pulling again. We were 15 miles into the ride and holding a speed of 22 to 22 1/2 MPH when a couple of guys took the lead and jumped the speed to 24 1/2 MPH.
I immediately went from riding comfortably to suffering. Just 2 MPH made that much difference. After about a mile or so I was not dropped. I was flung off the back. I just could not hold the pace. Fortunately about 6 others had the safe fate at that speed difference, so we started our own paceline.
Actually, I was feeling very good on today's ride, so I found it amazing that my body found THAT much difference. However, I guess the old saying about "the straw that broke the camel's back" is true. There is that one point where everything changes. I know the gage is not the speed, because if you are pedaling directly into a strong headwind the amount of effort to hold 15 MPH could be more that the effort to hold a much higher speed with no wind. What was so interesting this morning was how close the difference between comfortable and suffering.
Typically, drafting reduces the power required to hold pace by approximately 30% and that assumes tight formation. Cross winds change the equation such that the benefit of drafting is reduced. Also, as the speed increases, riders tend to allow more margin (space) between riders and begin to lose formation. Once that happens in a crosswind, even slightly gapped riders see the benefit of drafting reduced even more such that they may require as much power as the leaders to hang on.
The way to compensate for crosswind is by forming an echelon and angle behind the rider in front to stay shielded from the wind. In practice, it is hard to echelon across a road that is open to car traffic. However, staying in tight formation and riding low in the drops helps.