It was SO windy that...
 

On a section where I usually am traveling 25 mph pedaling about half power, I was pedaling full power, downhill, in the drops, as low as I possibly could be over the bars, going 12 mph. It sucked. Then the wind changed and I got the wind on 3 legs of my 4 leg "square" loop. Stupid freaking wind.

What are your worst wind stories?

Inwas dropped by a jogger.

My brother in law was riding up Mount Haleakola on Maui when the wind lifted him up in the air and dumped him on the side of the road resulting in a broken clavicle.

My worst and scariest wind stories involve sudden cross winds that almost blow me over and/or off the road and/or into oncoming traffic.

Headwinds are not nearly as disturbing IMO. Just ride and don't look at your speed.

Agree, side winds are far worse & unpredictable. My worst experience was in early spring a few years back, the roads were still sticky with winter ***** on them. The side wind was very strong so I was leaning to my left when I could feel my bike lifting off the road due to poor traction on slippery roads.

Even without a wind change you will usually have it against you on three out of four sides of any rectangular route. That is just the physics of the thing. Not as strong in all three of those directions, but still no fun.

I ate some deviled eggs during a ride. I'll never do that again.

i get blown around a lot by wind. i just tend to lean into it so it doesn't push me over so much. but yeah, it's definitely pushed me over like 1-2 feet or so on a narrow bridge.

:lol:

I was getting the side wind as well on that day, to the point where I was leaning my bike over quite a bit. It's just a helpless feeling to be pedaling so hard and going nowhere.

Also any sailor knows about apparent wind - you make your own wind moving forward.

I don't know how strong the wind actually was but I was going downhill at 9 mph with a lot of effort. Normally I coast on that stretch doing 30-35

Look at the bright side, in the other direction you get a nice tailwind.

That's the problem, not always.

Climbing out of Death Valley. It was only about a 2% grade. I was in my easiest gear but couldn't go more than 3 mph. The guy riding ahead of me was blown off the road, so I gave up and decided to walk. It took both hands to keep my 20 lb bike on the ground.

Two stories: Starting on a ride on hot humid days during a period when there was a monsoon like weather pattern, i.e., hot, humid, thunderstorm every afternoon, but reasonably clear until the storm comes in. Told my riding partner we would probably get rained on, but it would feel good.

As we hit the far leg of the loop, the storm came in. Dark clouds with a low black shelf at the edge of the front as the wind picked up to a level that was blowing limbs from trees. I was riding with a decided list into the wind, the rain stung, and I tried to tell my riding partner to pull into a driveway just ahead so we could get shelter at the house. He got the wrong driveway and we wound up going down a gravel driveway paved with large rocks at a speed that was on the wrong side o discretion. There was a curve at the end of the drive. When I got there, his bike was on the ground as he sped through the grass with his arms spread wide making eggbeater motions as he was taking seven league strides. I thought I heard motorboat sounds as I got there.

The other was on a catered adventure tour on the Friendship Highway from Lhasa, Tibet to Kathmandu, Nepal. We crossed the last pass across the Himalaya Massif at 5000m (17,000 feet); it was largely downhill for the first part of the 100 km. to Kathmandu. There was a fast downhill for 10 km until we stopped for lunch with a small herd of goats for company. We still had 40 km. to the day’s stop, but I looked down the steep road and figured it would take about an hours. Maybe an hour and a half if one were pessimistic.

There is always a wind blowing uphill in the afternoon on the south side of the mountains as warm air from the lower slope rises and it can be pretty stiff. The road flattened after about a kilometer, the road turned right, and my speed went down to about 20 kph, requiring some appreciable effort to maintain that speed, although it was still downhill. I had to adjust my ETA by about an hour. My speed continued to slow as I constantly adjusted my ETA up. Finally hit a stretch that was basically flat with some slight upgrades. I was pedaling about 6 kph (4 mph). By my reckoning, my ETA was still 3 or 4 hours. I got frustrated and sagged the rest of the way.
Yep, I sagged downhill. As it turned out, it was only a km or two until the road crossed a bridge and headed downhill with an appreciable grade. We stopped in a village called Nyalem. But I felt supercharged as I breathed the densest air I had encountered in the last two weeks.

Well, since we're only talking about nasty headwinds, the worst I ever had was last year on the Col du Glandon in the French Alps. 2km from the top, about 1800m elevation, 11% grade, raining with 6 BFT headwind (about 25-30mph). I was in my lowest gear, pedaling steadily, only managing 10km/h at the fastest. I swear if it hadn't been for the wind, I probably would have fallen over from going so slow.

I was once riding in the wind so hard that I ended up out of my home state Kansas and onto some yellow road. Boy was that confusing.

Also was once riding against the wind which was awful, but I did a left turn into the crosswind onto an uphill segment and immediately fell over, much to the entertainment of passing cars. Nothing hurt but my pride, but it was time to turn around after that fiasco.

I was riding in an area with a 30 to 40 mph side wind and I was leaning into it...UNTIL IT STOPPED SUDDENLY. I just about biffed it without having the strong wind to lean into.

That actually happened to me ~12,000' climbing Mt Evans.:(

It was damned windy here yesterday. Eventually I just resigned myself to running in the 34 ring. In no way for me does getting the tailwind make up for it. If anything I have the urge to coast and recover. A portion of my route was 35 mph downhill and wide open with side wind. Even at 180 lb I get moved around the lane.

scott s.
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I ride the same section of road pretty much every time. It's the road leading out towards Red Rock state park. On the way out, it is about 7 miles with an average uphill grade of about 2 or 3% I would say.

Very often, there is wind and it's usually a headwind on the way out. When it gets over 15mph, average speed slows to 10mph.

It's not that fun, but my God it is fun beyond words coming back in those conditions. Sustained 35mph for 7 miles.

... that I took my one and only Strava KOM on a flat segment. The tailwind was strong that day my friends.

Once in Nebraska, the wind stopped blowing and everyone fell down.

I live in the Wind River Basin of Wyoming. If the name's any clue, we get some pretty hefty gusts out here. Some days you'll get amazing tailwinds that make you feel like you're flying, others it's blasting right in your face and making you re-consider the whole cycling thing. And sometimes it'll do both in the span of ten minutes.

I commute often enough in 15mph winds. I'm usually worried about being blown into traffic when it's a crosswind, but mostly it's me pushing my way home in the drops (now that I have drops to drop into).

BTW, what do you guys consider a 'strong' wind?