A cycling haiku

Wind is in my face.
Shut up and pedal, say I,
Slowly I endure.

Not a coffee drinker but I swear if I stop at the turn around point and eat a protein bar, drink some water, and just breathe for a minute and maybe take some pictures, by the time I mount up it's blowing the other way. Just my luck.

I hate the wind but it never seems to stop blowing from somewhere at both of the places I ride so I'm stuck with it.

My general feeling about riding on windy days is, "**** you, Bob Seeger!"

I have two approaches to riding on windy days. One is to get on my fixie and ride straight into it for 10-20 miles getting over-gear training, then turn around and spin my legs off all the way home.

The other approach is something my club did back in the day. We'd get a couple of non-cycling friends (significant others work fine) to drive us upwind, drop us off then have them meet us somewhere 60-100 miles down wind. US 12 in southern Michigan worked well for a wind coming out of the west, or M-60/M-66 when the wind was coming out of the southwest. Nothing beats it for high-speed pack riding. Just don't think about getting a flat when you're doing it.

--Rick

--

You're one of many who mentioned riding upwind first and enjoying the downwind ride home. I know this is common practice, so it's not personal.

However, I prefer to do the opposite, enjoying the downwind ride while it's there, rather than betting on it being there later in the afternoon.

While there's no right and wring here, I feel my approach offers better odds of less headwind riding on any given day. This is especially true inn coastal areas where the morning's offshore winds often reverse to onshore later in the day.

Either way, my approach assures that I'll get at least one downwind leg in, and with luck maybe two. OTOH - those who ride upwind first assure at least one upwind leg, or maybe two.

Of course, I have to factor that coming home may be tougher than going out, so I'll make an allowance when planning the turn around.

No, I don't take it personal. It's simply an exchange of ideas.

These really are two different workouts aren't they? And, sure, I can get caught tired and not have the tailwind behind me, but that is what weather.com is for.

Here in Western Michigan we get most of those big blasts of wind in the spring as the low pressure systems clear out the cold. Living right on Lake Michigan those winds come off the lake fast and furious and they don't let up and reverse like your oceanside winds. So that reverse effect you mention is not something I worry about much.

As a sprinter, I like the idea of loading my legs going out, and then working on high-speed spin on the way back. The theory is that once my legs are fatigued and I turn around to spin, the fatigue in my legs fools the muscles into thinking that I'm spinning with a larger gear, mimicking a final sprint.

Mind you a very high-speed spin is no walk in the park, either. And there is a another agenda going on here, as well.

Imagine going 30+ MPH in a 60" gear; it'll smoke your legs, only in different muscles from the ones you stress going out. Since the tailwind is taking a lot of load off your quads and glutes, you'll start feeling the muscles that control your upstroke more: the semitendinosus and biceps femoris (two of your hamstring muscles), and the medial tibialis (the muscle in in your shins). Try simply lifting your toes toward your knee and you'll feel that shin muscle, and that controls power in the lower quarter of your upstroke. As you go further up on your upstroke you'll start feeling it in your hamstrings, much like what you'll feel when you do hamstring curls. Improving that strength and learning how to relax in your spin will improve your power output as your upstroke strength improves and quits adding resistance to your downstroke.

Since the powerful winds are most common early in the spring, the overall idea is to use the wind as an early-season spin training tool.

--Rick

Actually, I wasn't thinking about workouts as much as reflecting on the idea of doing the hard leg first, so the second half of the ride will be easier.

My point, was simply that the upwind first strategy assures a headwind for half the ride, with the possibility of a tailwind for the other half. However, if you take the tailwind while it's there, it's in the bank, and you can also be lucky and have it blow you home too.

:lol: its not like ANYONE could hear us, there wont be anyone out riding!

had to pick up a package, normally a <40min ride, but it was windy... took me 3.5h, with a 4mph everage on the way there, way home was a lil quicker

That sounds like my philosophy. "Take the tailwind when it offers itself. After all, the wind might change when you turn around!"

I have to admit, there are times that is exactly the right thing to do. ;)

I must admit, that if I can, on a windy day, I'll plan the wind in my face going out and let it blow me back home on the return.
I do have to be careful when there is a cold wind in my teeth, the bonk sneaks up on me. I tend to forget to hydrate--just keep going, trying to get to the end of it. Not wise..imho.

Buildings can offer cover from the wind, but side streets pose a risk, tunneling the wind. This was last month's storm, watch the second cyclist in the back ground.
dumpert.nl - Storm zit te klieren

I did ride that day, but it wasn't as bad where I live.

100 km ride today ... windy day but not as windy as it could have been. Thank goodness. We cycled from 10 am to 4 pm.

https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3837/3...75541c99_o.jpg

The rest of the story is here:
http://www.bikeforums.net/road-cycli...ril-1-2-a.html

Your air speed goes up, you work harder Against it, the 2x speed meets 4x wind resistance factor still in in effect,

though in this case the wind is moving and your ground speed is reduced... [so 8x air resistance would be 0.5 speed?]

be glad the planet has an atmosphere at all.



:innocent:

it just happen to be that every morning i have a headwind, and on the way back, i do too, for the last 3 years, only one day the wind didnt turn when i got off work :lol:

A couple days this week with the wind 50 gusting to 70 km/h including today. At that point I generally don't ride. Happens frequently in the spring / fall here. Last Saturday the wind was around 40 km/h for the return leg of a ride and I couldn't do anymore than about 14-15 km/h in the drops.

Apparently it has been windy here lately ...

Weather News - Hobart heritage buildings not built to withstand Tasmania's toughest wind speeds

If the temp is nice, I try to plan my training rides into the wind, and have it behind me on the trip home, now that's fun !

My commute ride makes a horse shoe pattern so if there is wind, I'll be against it for part of the commute. For about 4 km, I ride beside a river so I do get some strong winds often. I changed bike this year and my current bike has drop bars, so I choose a more aerodynamic position against the wind. My commute bag where rear wheel side panniers last year. Now I use a pannier mounted on top of the rear wheel so it creates less drag. So although riding against the wind still sucks, it doesn't suck as much as last year.

I hope they straighten that out, those buildings are fantastic. I enjoy learning about the places I visit (history). I rememeber walking around Salamanca and being in awe of the buildings there.

There's that common misconception again, that training is only justified if you're into competitive racing. Training can be anything from getting your heart rate up on the final leg home, to working yourself up to ride to the bakery in that next town, to a regimented calendar of hard days and rest days. Training improves your health with a stronger body and a healthier heart with a lower resting heart rate; and can help you control your weight too. You don't have to be a 'racer' to benefit.

+1

Adding my $.02:

I ride in the wind to be strong enough and have the bike-handling skills to deal with windy conditions on 'race' day. My 'races' are never sanctioned. I get a number, somebody is tracking time with a stop-watch, and we ride our bike over a course, prizes at the end of the 'race' are typically sharing BYOB beers with your buddies... 'racing'. Based on this definition of 'racing', many of the BF members are 'racers'.

Also consider supported charity rides - Nobody's taking your time, you don't get a race number, and yet those rides can see you riding in windy conditions. Therefore, "training" in the wind is important for non-race rides, something I remind Lisa all the time when she's mashing into a block head-wind (she really hates that too). :p

Hills and the wind are our friends. They speed us along or they make us strong.

Yes, you are correct, I retract my earlier broad based comment. Having said that though I still see no point to train in the wind myself. Perhaps if I rode a racer like many here do it would make sense, but I ride a more upright hybrid and even a moderate wind can reduce my speed so much I despair of ever getting home. "Training" for me is simply lifting my cruising speed for prolonged periods, but to do that on a racer would lead me to unsafe speeds in the areas I cycle.

Ditto. Although I swear, sometimes I can ride in a circle and have a headwind the whole way...

Sometimes if it's too windy or too sunny it's a good sign that it's time to go off-road instead.

After avoiding my favorite hilly rural route on windy days I decided to tackle it for a challenge Tuesday when the wind was a steady 20-25 mph with gusts up to 40 mph.

First concession I made was to wear my tighty diaper shorts instead of my usual baggies. Felt weird. I hadn't worn the tighty type shorts since last summer, and before then it had been 30 years since I wore 'em.

The tight shorts did help a lot with the wind. And I maintained my usual no-wind pace of 14-15 mph. The previous rides on windy days would balloon up my shorts legs like parachutes. Potentially dangerous with strong gusts.

But I curtailed that ride after cresting the peak of that hilly route and seeing signs blown over by the wind and utility lines shaking precariously. I headed back the other direction toward the river valley where it was sheltered from most of the wind. I still had my eyes peeled for tree limbs and branches. Recent rains had left some dying limbs soggy and weakened, and the wind was loosening more of 'em. I saw a few places where dead limbs and branches had snagged halfway down the tree, dangling right over my usual route.