How bad does it have to be for you not to go on a ride?

Usually the wind has to be mixed with heavy rain or hail for me not to go. The 30+ MPH gusts in IL. today made for a good workout. I was heading home, going almost with the wind when a big gust hit me head on and instantly slowed me by 4 MPH. It also made holding a straight line on the road difficult at times.

I am guessing 40 something may be my limit.

June 20, 1995 .... I was out riding when a "Dry Microburst" (sort of like a small tornado) struck Winnipeg with winds of 160 km/h (100 miles per hour). I got caught in it.

However, I have willingly gone out riding in 80 km/h (50 mph) winds.

If you live where there are no hills (eg. tablelands, prairie, etc) wind is a special opportunity to get some decent climb simulations in.

Just how hard is too hard is pretty subjective. It'll depend on your strength, fitness, skill, and confidence.

Riding in the wind is much more difficult if it's gusty (see edp's post, above). Gusty wind saps your physical and mental strength faster.

Go out and try riding in wind of various strengths and have fun working out your own limit

It's not about ride difficulty. It's about ride safety. The point where you can't even hold a straight line is a good start, especially if it's gusty. A passing vehicle can easily disrupt the airflow causing you to

1) crash
2) get sucked underneath the wheels

With these crowded roads here in New Jersey (especially where I live), I tend to stay off of them when the winds hit 25+mph. I am not so confident in my abilities in traffic yet to have to deal with it, and strong sidewinds too. Headwinds I hate but at least you can get a workout in them (and I am lazy )

Cheers,

Brian

Now that I have a trike, the wind has to be pretty bad indeed. I simply can't use the "wind will knock me over or slow me down" routine anymore...

usually here in texas winds seems an everyday occurence, usually gusting from 10 to 30 mph anything over that I don't ride. The wind makes for a good training rides, but I hate the wind do to sinus aggravation
Summer time very little wind, just hot

Depends on air temp, 70 degrees and 30mph wind I will ride, 30 degrees and 30mph
wind I don't. Wind chill will get you.

You were on the bike riding and the wind reached 100 mph where you were? What was it like? Did you get knocked down? What about objects being blown around?




For me when I can't stay up is when I stop, I don't know how much wind that is.

Yes, I was on my bicycle. This really fast and violent storm blew in, and I was trying to cycle toward some shelter in one of the local parks. The wind was really picking up and the temperature was dropping quickly (it dropped from about 30C down to about 15C). I rounded a corner, looked up, and was VERY startled to see that a tornado (microburst) had touched down right in front of me, on a lot where a large building had been demolished. There was debris of all sorts (bits of bricks, wood, etc.) blowing way up in the sky.

Just then a gust hit me, and it felt like it lifted me and the bicycle a bit. I bailed off the bicycle onto the grass at the side of the road.

Then, I tried to think what to do (all in about 2 seconds). For a tornado, they always say two things: lie down in a low spot, or move at right angles to the tornado to get away from it. Well, the low spot where I was was the Red River behind me, and I wasn't about to jump into it. And I've never understood this business of moving at right angles to a tornado.

So I grabbed my bicycle and ran (almost in slow motion) into some trees that lined a bicycle path, hoping for some shelter from the wind. I did get some shelter and was able to start riding again, but I was also hit by small branches breaking off the trees and other debris.

Eventually I got to one of the picnic shelters in the park which is almost built like a bunker and squeezed in there with a whole crowd of other people. The wind was just howling! One of the children in there started crying and his mother told him, "Don't worry, it's just wind ... it won't hurt you." . . . Meanwhile there I was tending to my bleeding arms and legs.

Meanwhile also, the microburst crossed the river and tore apart the tents for the Red River Exhibition that was going on at that time. I believe there were pictures in the paper of people hanging onto street light poles and things to keep from being blown away.

I rode the route again the next day. There was debris EVERYWHERE .... and I also discovered that right where I had been hit by that initial gust that lifted me and my bicycle, a massive branch had broken from one of the big old oak trees and crashed on road where I had been.

I've been fascinated by tornados ever since!

WOW ! Have you thought about writing a book? Seriously.

I think what they mean is to go at right angles from the direction the tornado is traveling. In other words if the wind in the tornado is 100 mph it may be advancing towards you at only 20 mph, go sideways, not straight away from it.


Easy to say now, not so easy to do.

Well, slowly but surely I'm putting together a collection of my adventures on my website.

And yes, you're probably right about the right angle thing, but my issue with it is that tornados can be erratic. They might travel south for a few feet or a kilometer or two, and then suddenly veer off in another direction, or zig-zag around.


Since that experience, I started watching the weather a lot more closely and I've seen numerous funnel clouds, and one other tornado. A lot of the funnels and the other tornado occurred on my 1000K brevet. That was an interesting ride! On the third day there were storms all around (we actually had to seek shelter in someone's barn at one point), and funnels were forming all over the place. I've got a photo of one on my site, although if you didn't know what you were looking for, it would be kind of hard to spot (my camera of choice is an inexpensive one-use camera). I was riding along watching the sky when this funnel suddenly formed off in the distance ... it kind of hovered a bit and then began dropping lower and lower ... and then there was a big cloud ground debris! I was standing on my pedals at this point and I started shouting, "It touched down!! Look! Look!" I think that was the last thing the poor guy riding with me wanted to hear!

Speaking of wind ... have any of you gone "sailing" on your bicycle?


I did that once on a day that had about 80km/h (50 mph) winds. I was riding my heavy mountain bike with the knobby tires, but any time I made any effort at all to pedal, my speed was up over 50 km/h. Just coasting though, I discovered that I could maintain about 20-25 km/h. Just for fun, I unzipped my jacket and held it out ...... and discovered that my coasting speed increased! For about 40 kms the friend I was riding with and I "sailed"!

And then we had to turn around and go back. It took all my strength to maintain about 6 km/h.



A word of advice .... if you're ever going to try sailing, ride into the wind first, and sail back!

I've not done it on a bicycle. However, when I was a teenager, I skateboarded anywhere I needed to go. On several windy days, I took an umbrella with me and when it was blowing my way, I'd just open up the umbrella. Going back into the wind was not much fun, but then I would close the umbrella and just keep pushing.

Good times...

I did it for about a mile. The wind was not directly behind us so I trimed the sail. I angled my jacket a little to catch more wind and went a little faster. It was great.

I remember when hurricane Isabelle came through here in 2003, the Coast Guard arrested a guy that was living a windsurfer's dream out in the Chesapeake.

That's exactly what I was doing that day! The road curved a little here and there, and wind never consistantly comes from exactly one direction, so if I was slowing up a little, I'd just adjust my jacket a bit and take off again!

Machka you continue to amaze me and I have this total respect/admiration thing about your bicycle efforts and experiences.

I was out yesterday in 45-50 mph winds. The first leg was a mile right into it. It was all I could do to keep my front wheel steady. The gusts shifted slightly the whole time. I could not get above 7th gear /12. Actually I was probably too high geared but I tend to be stubborn. ( although the winter biking got the best of me this year I admit ) When I finally turned, the wind was coming at me almost sideways but a little from the rear. I found that if I turned my body slightly like a sail the wind just let me cruise along although the bike was tipped top slightly toward off road to the right. It was cool! The only bad part was a semi-truck pulled out behind me and kept going slow because it was afraid to pass me with cars coming at us. As soon as the cars cleared, I reached up my left arm to wave him past me. As soon as I did this the wind caught my arm and threw me off balance and I ended up going into the ditch rolling out off my bike in a shoulder to ankle fall breaking roll. I can just imagine that I made that trucker's day. I could just imagine him laughing at my wavering decent into the ditch and rolling crash.

I learned a lot of lessons about wind yesterday, like: When stopping and heavy wind is hitting you on the unclipped side, give more lean toward the foot you took out of the clip or the wind will blow you over to the clipped in leg side at the stop; If you have a bucket on the back for carrying stuff and you stop unhook the bungies and take things out to add more to your clothing, hang on to the bucket or you will be chasing it down the road; If you stop for any reason don’t leave the bike alone positioned with the wind coming at it from the stand side or it will blow the bike over; and finally if you crash, remember to make sure the water bottles are still on the bike or you might get up the road a mile and have to turn around into the wind and go back and get them. Other than that it was a great workout The bike is fine.

Glad to hear that you and the bike are fine.

Experience helps when dealing with the wind. Their is a lot of small adjustments you can make to deal with varying wind speeds. Living west of the windy city gives me plenty of experience.

I used to shoot competitve archery and that taught me to work with the wind. By paying attention to the wind, you can judge when the majority of the gusts and lulls are coming. Of course mother nature will through in a sudden gust to keep you on your toes.