Does your steed noodle in the wind?
 

I went out for a short ride, with a couple of km downhill, in to a gusty wind. The bike felt like it was being pushed around by the wind more than I've ever felt before. It has a pair of (not C&V) Campag Neutrons on it with slightly bladed spokes. Felt properly unstable. Anyone else suffer form noodliness in gusty conditions?

You may have had the wind at just the right angle at the time, but the bike shouldn't be noodly, just less sure-footed.
Wind forces should not flex a frame, in my limited grasp of things. Moving the entire bike and rider, I understand.

Spokes are insignificant as far as sail area. Rim depth, tubing vertical surface area, the helmet, the rider; these are factors.

I've found that my position on the bike has a major effect on descending and handling in the wind. Of course I stay tucked on the drops, but also maintain a looser grip on the bars and I lay the inside of one of my knees or lower thigh against the top tube.

Neutrons are are pretty low profile if I recall correctly and I doubt they were a big factor in your issue.

Its mostly about the wheels, and then you can break that down in category's. I'm often in the open plains, cross spurts to constant wind. Swap wheels and tires around with various bikes. Amazing how a bike changes character with just wheels and tires.

Quick analogy and just for discussion --- tires. If you have a very light rotational mass (rim + tire), try a heavier tire. Weird, but to me a bike becomes more stable in cross winds.

I have Neutrons on two bikes.

Best all around clincher I have used.

Never experienced an issue like you describe with these on steel framed bikes.

Same for CF when I had them on a Colnago EPS.

The one drawback with my mildly aero rims and nicely whirring bladed spokes.

Boat anchor (but deep) Zondas on a F Moser Forma. Sure u gotta fight it in a storm but the thing weighed nearly 13kg & was surprisingly surefooted. I never got blown over, even riding in Wellington & the Wairarapa aka the windiest places in the world.

My Ken Evans has a very nice whistle it makes in high wind.

My 'why is this frame so badly made, why does it have Dura Ace on it & how soon until it explodes?' el cheapo Full Carbon Tomasso was terrifying in the wind.

My off-topic bike has 38mm rims up front and 58mm in the back. Very squirrelly in a cross. Really not a factor though other than descents as higher velocities exaggerate any adverse movements.

Definitely the rim shape is a major factor, even on older, not-so-tall rims, and especially with the more-pointed rim profiles.

My old Kestrel was terrible in even mild crosswinds until I tried swapping front wheels with a fellow rider while out riding. The box-section rim fully cured the problem that the low-profile 1980's "aero" rim had caused.

There can be an abrupt change in flow pattern as a certain angle of attack of the passing air is exceeded, as a largely laminar airflow pattern suddenly transitions to a turbulent airflow. The effect on steering when this occurs can be dramatic and startling. I do suspect that pointed rim profiles encourage this sort of abrupt transitioning.
My worst encounter was while riding a loaned pair of Mavic Cosmic Carbone aero wheels, which while giving the bike a definitely faster feel did also cause me to think at one point that someone had actually grabbed and pulled at my handlebar!

Since I am not doing any road or crit races these days, I want nothing to do with things like twitchy rims or carbon braking surfaces, things which detract from the pleasures of cycling.
Nor do I want to smell other rider's cooking brake pads nor see them getting blown toward traffic or veering toward the roadside ditches.

"Noodliness" normally refers to frame flex, doesn't it? That doesn't seem to be what the OP is referring to.

That's a good point. The described phenomenon perhaps more like "psychotic auto-pilot"?

Ahhh. It is my 'off-topic' bike that this was on, Ti not Fe. That might be a part of it. Although I quite like the Psychotic auto pilot analysis too.

Robbie - Spokes actually make a huge factor. I've actually got a frame of reference riding different spokes in different conditions. If I'm on a 36h bike in the wind its night and day from one of my bikes with 40h, or even 48 drill. The more spokes the more a cross wind absolutely gets spooky. To the point that if gets really bad, you go home and switch wheels and/or bikes. Same Cannondale frames, same me, different spoke count.

I've never been on bladed spokes, but that would only make things worse, one would think.

I can imagine that with weighted panniers on the rear...

Actually a good thread topic for C&V. Could go back to the years of Zippper fairings and first gen carbon wheels or spokes.

I tried the early Spin windmills. Hated them but rather interesting. Heavy, sluggish and terrible ride, not exactly quality in truing. Poor for the large climbs. But once you had these heavy flywheels up to speed and in the flats, they were stable. Definite difference between the wire spoke aero laced.

Next was a radical laced, feather light wheelset (Ti in the rear, radial non-drive, 3x drive). I'll skip the details but the front was a 32 hole, radial lace using Fiber Flite directional bladed carbon spokes. Rim was a Sun M19-IIa (if I recall correctly the model??). Beautiful rider but you had to be cautious with it and how used. I don't know why but for being a wheel with lighter outer rotational mass it felt confident in stronger cross winds. Its one of the few I can recall having that bonus.

My semi-OT bike with 50mm Campy Bullets is not so bad in a cross wind, but is an extreme handful going into the wind downhill. Every small shift of the breeze is felt.

By comparison my 32 and 36 spoke C&V wheels are actually worse in a cross wind, but are very well mannered on descents. IMO spoke count is one of the most significant factors that influences everyday riding speed (fewer being faster). Bladed spokes seem significantly better in a cross wind than non bladed ones, not sure why, but it is noticeable.