The other day I was out riding when a wicked front came through and the pleasant ~5mph winds turned into 30mph with gusts over 50. It got so bad that I had to call for rescue because I got so much crap blown around my shades and into my eyes that I was riding blind. Before that, though I struggled on for 10 or so miles wrestling the bike the whole way to stay between the traffic and the ditch.

That experience made me wonder about the positive or negative value of many of the "wind-tunnel-tested" extremely aero bikes and accessories. While it is inevitable that shrinking the left-right dimension of bottles, tubes, etc. helps reduce drag; my concern is the great expansion of tubes, rims, etc. in the front-back/up-down dimensions. Again, it seems reasonable and seems to be born out by experience and testing that this is a great advantage when riding straight into the surrounding air mass.

What I wonder about is how much this exacerbates side forces and what effect that has on energy expenditure and on safety. Since I'm almost always a solo rider, the technique of hiding to the side of the peleton ain't relevant. What is is the amount of energy spent wrestling the bars dealing with gusts and the increased risk of a crash because of the lowered stability.

Just as an illustration, compare the surface area facing a 90 degree wind between these two bikes:



and



Note that I just picked two reasonably expensive, but not truly crazy bike from major vendors. I'm not trying to favor one or the other or even imply that they are for the same purpose or rider. For the sake of this discussion, imagine the traditional steel frame and the carbon ultra-aero frame being built with the same general geometry, same grouppos, etc. What I want to know is for those who ride in strong and unpredictable winds, what ends up being the sweet spot in the range between classic steel racer and the NASA-approved but UCI-illegal aero demon?