Originally Posted by big john

I copied this from the Furnace Creek Race thread quoting Biker395:

The best word to describe riding through those winds in Death Valley in the middle of the night?

Absurd.

I was riding solo, so I was unable to take any pictures. When my crew sends me the pictures, I'll post a TR.

The star of the show were the winds. Imagine riding on FLAT ground from Trona Road into Trona at 38MPH without pedaling(!) Now imagine riding into winds even stronger than that.

How windy was it?

Windy enough to turn the road from Stovepipe Wells to Furnace Creek into a blinding sandstorm.

Windy enough to create little sand dunes on the highway itself.

Windy enough so that there were scorpions presumably blown across the highway. I saw at least 5 or 6, sitting there wondering what hit them.

Windy enough to see me pedaling downhill in my lowest gear (this is the one I climb 20% grades with) at about 2 MPH.

Windy enough so that it took me 6 hours to pedal about 30 miles as hard as I could against it.

Windy enough so that I had to stop every 5 miles. Not to catch my breath, but because I didn’t dare take my hands off of the handlebars, and I had to drink lest I became dehydrated.

Windy enough so that I had to scream to my van driver, his ear no more than a foot away from me, why I had stopped.

Windy enough, so that, I couldn’t keep the bike going straight with both hands on the handlebars. Not only were the winds strong, they were also variable. With those kind of winds, your front wheel acts like a rudder. You have to point the wheel into the wind, or the wind catches it, and turns it off to the side. That’s bad enough, but imagine if thew winds were not always coming from the same direction! The result is that you wander all over the road, getting across, right to left and left to right. I missed the ditch countless times and needed the whole road in both directions.

Windy enough, so that on flat ground, while doing one of these impromptu switchbacks, my front wheel was briefly lifted off the ground

Windy enough so that I finally did NOT miss the ditch. Precisely where the Mormon Point sign is, a gust of wind that was not only strong, but lengthy, pushed me from the left side of the road, across the front of my van, and right into the ditch. I have the scratches and cherry to prove it. And I wasn't the only one.

Windy enough, so that when Rick got out of the van and held the bike up for me to get back on, we were both nearly knocked over by it, and this was on the leeward side of the van!

Windy enough so that although our goal was to get to Ashford Mills, only 5 miles or so away, I insisted that we sleep there where I fell.

Windy enough, so that despite the fact my dreams of finishing the 508 were now shredded to bits, I laughed hysterically when I finally got into the van. It was absurd to be out there riding a bike.

Windy enough to buffet the van around violently while the four of us tried to sleep inside, my bike laying on the ground outside.

Windy enough so that it flipped the bike over while it was sitting on the ground outside.

I dunno what the weather report said. I really don’t much care.

"Windy." "Headwinds." No ... those words don't do it justice.

There is one side benefit. Henceforth, no matter how windy it gets on a bike ride, I'll summon up the memory of early Sunday morning in Death Valley, and it will seem like a light breeze.