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Old 12-01-12 | 12:24 PM
  #47  
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Carbonfiberboy
just another gosling
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From: Everett, WA

Bikes: CoMo Speedster 2003, Trek 5200, CAAD 9, Fred 2004

Originally Posted by gregf83
Yes, the point is it's much easier to ride 10mph into an apparent headwind of 40 than 30mph into an apparent headwind of 30.
Maybe, but it's close. Obviously at higher speeds frictional resistance is a much larger percentage of the total. I've been steady at LT at 10 mph, full tuck on the aero bars, pulling my hill leader on the flat. Didn't have a wind-speed meter, but from sailing I guessed it as about 30 and an apparent of 40. Even a small difference in estimated wind speed makes a major difference, from the law of squares, so I could have been wrong about the wind speed by say 5 mph.

But what I want to know is what does your PM say when you're doing that? Do you get 300w-400w at 10 mph? Because physics says you shouldn't. Reductio, if you were in a wind where you could hardly turn the cranks, the PM should say near zero, regardless of RPE.
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