cyclezealot

I feel uncomfortable when wind speed exceed 35 mph , so I'll likely ditch the ride. How about you. ?

HAMMER MAN

texas always has wind. A head wind sometimes I grind through the miserable part other times I take my time and just spin, tail wind now that is a different story haulin ***

stevemtbr

On super windy days I'll head to the deep woods and hope a tree doesn't fall on me.

C Law

yep, above 40 mph I head for the trails instead and keep an ear out for the cracking sound

cyclezealot

35 might be tolerble. My fear is the gusts at 60.

Marrock

Depends on whether it's a headwind or tailwind.

webist

Winds here reached 20 MPH this weekend. I still got my 50 miles in.

Nermal

30 mph head wind and I don't go. If I'm caught in the middle of a ride, well, I didn't buy a bike to walk.

edzo

never have abandoned a ride for wind

been in 60mph leftover hurricane winds, and it was scary
seeing big trees ripped up, and it's hard to ride,
but I kept goin

Machka 

I have never abandonned a ride because of wind, and I lived and cycled in Manitoba for 13 years. Winnipeg is nicknamed Windy-peg for a reason! I've ridden in 80 km/h (50 mph) winds a few times, and once got caught in a microburst where the winds were clocked at 160 km/h (100 mph) ... that one knocked me off my bicycle.

However, the last couple days there have been wind warnings here in central Alberta where the wind is gusting to 90 km/h (56 mph), the temperature is around 5C, and it looks like it could rain ... I didn't go out yesterday, and probably won't go out today.

cyclezealot

I have gotten used to 40 plus mile an hour winds. Once had to walk back a mile or so, when winds came up that exceeded 60 mph gusts. I really felt like i was gonna be blown over by the sideways gusts. If the direction was not sporadic and just 40 plus mile headwinds, maybe it'd not abandon, but winds that blow you down. No thanks.

Peek the Geek

If it's too windy I load up one of my mountain bikes and hit the singletrack. I consider myself lucky to have nice local trails to escape to.

Boudicca

I stopped for a red light once, and the wind was so strong I had to hide in the shelter of a building before I could start up again. Next stop light was also red, and I rode through (it was one of those lights with no cars coming in from the right anyway). I think I could have argued my way out of a ticket, on safety grounds, had there been anyone around to watch. Since then I've been a little bit more cautious in really heavy winds.

mmerner

depends on how far I'm going. If it's just to work, nothing will stop me. If it's a pleasure ride (30+ miles) I'll probably stay home if winds exceed 30mph.

Chris L

Short answer is: I don't.

So far my "official" record is 135km/h winds in a mini-cyclone a few years back. I say "official", because I thought some of the winds around Lake Wanaka in New Zealand last year might have exceeded that.

ken cummings

I abandoned a ride with a 40-50 MPH headwind 9 miles into a 19 mile ride. August 18th in Death Valley and the ride started at night when it was 117 degrees F.

StephenH

Okay, a stupid question. I hear people complain about wind of XX mph. So do y'all have anemometers on your bikes, or depending on the weather report or making a wild guess at that wind speed? Just curious.

Machka 

Weather reports and experience ... you get to know that a wind of XX km/h means that the flags do this or that, or that the trees bend like this or that.

Also, in my 160 km/h experience, that one made the news and was officially clocked at the time it occurred.

StephenH

Okay, I had just wondered.

Wind speed varies with elevation. Looking online, I'm finding conflicting information, but seems that "standard" wind speed is recorded at either 20' elevation or 10m elevation (33'). In which case, wind speed at bicycling level should be about 75-80% of the "reported" wind speed.

Last time I rode when it was fairly windy, I noticed when I was riding with the wind, I couldn't feel much of anything- meaning the wind speed must have been pretty close to 15 mph, but I would have figured a lot more when riding into it. I didn't think to check the weather report that day, though, to see what they were reporting.

dubstylee

I just survived a windy ride today.

30 mph headwind with gusts of 45. I was riding my cyclocross on gravel, holding between 8-12 mph depending on how loose and hilly the dirt was. I rode 1 hour into the wind.

The way back I went on a paved road, and covered the same distance in just over 20 minutes with the wind pushing me!

Oh, I rode with the wind to my side, and wow, running even semi-aero wheels in a huge crosswind can suck. The bike slid out from under me twice, but luckily I have a quick reflexes in getting my foot out (those no handed trackstands have actually benefited me).

Machka 

I often wonder about reported wind speed ... some days I swear all their equipment is under a glass dome. There were many days in Manitoba where the weather channel would be reporting a 5 km/h wind, but when I went outside the flags were full out, leaves were blowing across the street, large trees were swaying ... and I'd be thinking to myself, "There's no way this is 5 km/h!"

But there a couple problems with weather reporting here in Canada.
1) It is reported once an hour, on the hour, unless there is a major weather disturbance (i.e. violent thunderstorm) in a populated area somewhere within that hour. So, at 2 pm, the winds could be 5 km/h in Winnipeg, then a little wind storm could kick up at 2:10 pm and blow things around for 40 minutes, and then settle back down again to about 5 km/h .... and the recordings would never reflect the wind speeds in that wind storm. And those sorts of things are not unusual in Manitoba ... wind there varies by the minute.

2) There are only a few weather reporting stations and the government keeps closing them. I live in central Alberta now. They used to have a weather reporting station here, but it was closed. Instead, they take an average between the weather in Edmonton and the weather in Calgary. But the thing is, I'm pretty close to the mountains and there are completely different weather systems that roll through here than either Edmonton or Calgary. So if Calgary is reporting 20 km/h winds and Edmonton is reporting 10 km/h winds, they'll say central Alberta is reporting 15 km/h winds, but meanwhile, maybe we're actually calm or experiencing 40 km/h winds.


However, the Beaufort Wind Scale seems to me to be fairly accurate, and I end up basing my wind calculations on a combination of reported speeds and observations like the ones in the links below.

https://www.stormfax.com/beaufort.htm
https://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/beaufort.html
https://www.bom.gov.au/lam/glossary/beaufort.shtml
https://www.redwitch.com/extras/beaufort_wind_scale.aspx

I'm taking a course called Violent Weather next semester (a science requirement!) and I'm really excited about it. I love weather! I should have probably gone in to be a meteorologist.

Chris L

It has a lot to do with the point at which they take the readings. I've noticed a similar phenomenon here, and I've also noticed that temperatures in this part of the world seem to be consistently understated by 3-4 degrees C. The latter occurs because the temperatures here are measured at the Seaway, which is totally unrepresentative of anywhere else that isn't surrounded by water on three sides.

I'd be checking the altitude profile of the area surrounding the weather station if you're worried about the wind being understated. Chances are, you are correct.

zonatandem

Had to abandon one ride on my single bike because of wind . . .
We live in mountainous/desert area. Windy day, climbed steep hill, as I crested hill, a huge blast of wind came through a saddle (the low spot were two mountains converge) on my left and it threw me sideways, off the road and into the dirt. Promptly did my paratrooper roll over handlebars.
Next thing I know there's a person standing there asking 'you OK?'
Person ended up calling ambulance; had 6 broken ribs and a punctured lung . . . lucky me, I just missed a 50 foot dropoff!
At 135 lbs in weight, I was told by my spouse: "Best put some rocks in your jersey pockets from now on!"

soze

35mph crosswind gusts have picked me up in lane and moved me a few inches over. This is unpleasant in rush hour traffic. Fortunately Albany doesn't have the breezes that my hometown Chicago does, so it's only happened a few times to me here.

Bicycles should not move at right angles.

pharmboyrx

Its the strong crosswinds that I don't like. Getting blown into traffic isn't pleasant. If its just a straight N or S wind (I ride on the coast of FL), I'll ride into it for as long as I can just so I can cruise the tailwind on the way home. I had a day where the wind was so strong I was maintaining around 30mph for about 15 miles. I'm usually a 19mpher in no wins so it was thrilling.