Oh yeah, I totally forgot, that while your drag is proportional to the square of the apparent wind speed, power consumption or output is equal to the drag multiplied by speed, and that speed is the ground speed not the wind speed. So that is the difference I guess. If your bicycle was driven by a propeller, then yes, a 60 kmph headwind might require the same power output as riding at 60 kmph.

I don't think pros ride at 60kph "fairly often". From what I've seen, they do it in some attacks, gap bridging, ultimo chilometro, etc. But that would be only a small amount of total race time. And at a sprint they can pull 1800/2000w for a few seconds, IIRC.

You guessed correctly. It's unfortunate it took 26 red herring posts to come up with the correct answer.

All I know is that you have to pedal harder in a stiff headwind. If you want to know exactly how much harder, get a power meter.

My approach is to just cuss and complain :lol:

/science.

Wind sucks.