I was riding the other day and the winds were brisk and swirling. A school bus passed on my side, a lane over, and really left me unstable for a moment. Has anyone ever had something like that send them over? I was going pretty fast (for me anyway) and it would have definitely hurt had I fallen.

I rode with a Brazilian guy on a 1200 randonnee when a major storm blew in from the ocean just over the sand dunes, with 60mph gusts as cross winds. This was in the dead of night, too, but fortunately there was no vehicular traffic at all (everyone else was wise enough to stay at home that night).

One gust blew the guy from one side of the road right across to the other and into the grassy ditch another 12 feet away.

He was OK and we battled on through the driving rain that stung like hell, too, until we were able to find sanctuary in the checkpoint at the next town.

Wind howling between buildings can be a major trap if you aren't aware of what's going on. Depending on strength, they can blow you from a foot to five foot off line.

Same with side winds and traffic moving past you, especially buses and semis. Not pleasant riding at all.

Once on a very windy/rainy day, a big truck carrying what looked like a big shed on the back that was one lane over and almost blew me into a ditch going 30km/h. When it's really windy when I ride, it blows me alll around the road.. I have to tilt my body like I'm going around a corner (like a 70-80 degree tilt, depending on how storng the wind is atm) just to stay up and not get blow off my bike, and to go in a straight line. It sucks eh?

This was posted earlier about the Tour de Palm Springs. Post 63 on.

https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...t=palm+springs

I've been blown off the road into a ditch at Junior road nats. Now, I was attacking right along the edge of the road, and was flirting with disaster to begin with, but it's happened.

My wife and I did that ride on the tandem. Worst was a quartering headwind. We were crawling with both headwind and cross wind components up a slight grade with absolutely no steerage. Came close to getting blown over and saw other single riders down.

Not yet.

Dont want to sound mean but if the wind is not like what this description says, then is not a hard wind, and if the guys is knocked to the side of the road is because he doesnt know how to ride a bike or his handling skills just plain suck, ask that to AS hehehe...

"Patagonia is renowned for its wild winds. How did you deal with them?

Most of the time the wind didn’t give us too many problems but some days could be extreme. One day we biked all day into a headwind so strong it kept catching the front wheel and pushing us off the road. We struggled to maintain 7km / hour and only managed 40km in 6 hours of hard riding. We couldn’t stop because we’d planned to meet some friends at the start of a hike!"

Imagine do like 22 miles in 6 hours... Now imagine crossed wind going with the bike tilted like 25 degrees riding your bike...

I'm trying to imagine this but all I get is an image of me laying on the couch watching TV because I stayed home.

i've been blown to the other side of the road into the path of oncoming traffic. luckily I survived so I can continue to share my pearls of wisdom with BF.

Yeah, strangely enough, bike commuting in a major city.
Cape Town South Africa, is famous for its winds. I didn't know this. I'm based in San Francisco and had to go there for a business trip.
Several guys I work with there, who live there, lended me a bike to ride back and forth from my hotel to the office.
i swear to god, 60 mph winds are not out of the ordinary there. Look it up.
i never fell, per se, but I was at a point where I simply could not ride forward. I could barely walk to be honest.

Oh, what bad luck.

Last year (around this time) I was eating a sandwich on my bike on my morning ride. I knew there were strong winds, but the bike path I was taking was in between buildings that blocked off so much wind that I could comfortable sit up and not use my hands.

What I did not think off was that the wind would come back when I " ran out of buildings" on my left and right protecting me. As I rode past the last building, a strong gust of wind knocked me off balance. I almost fel and was lucky there was no other traffic I could have ran into. Managed to save my sandwich though, which I instinctively held in my mouth before I reached down to regain my balance.... Gotta have your priorities.

Nope. But these guys have:

^ Nice echelon. Not very many people in the U.S. know how to do that.

No.

This is key. It's the variation in the wind that blows you off line.

Short of a hurricane you should be able to hold a pretty good line by balancing/steering the bike. It's sudden gusts, and sudden lulls (when your braced hard against a wind that disappears) that are difficult.

Anticipating where these are going to happen such as breaks in buildings, and changes in tree lines, fences, etc., helps.

Does it get windy on the trainer?

Closest I've ever come to being knocked off was a crosswind at an intersection. As the air is squeezed between buildings, its speed increases. See Venturi effect.

I was out on the MTB today in the hurricane near the Hudson River. I never get blown around on the MTB - but this time it was close as there were some 6o mph gusts. If I were higher up on a road bike + using big aero wheels I would have gone over. That said - yesterday the wind gave me an extra 3 mph on my back. It was great until I had to head back the same way - gruesome.

I was going to post about the TdPS this year. That was gnarley. Had to have been a 50mph cross-wind. Was literally blowing people off the road. Then we turned with the wind and it was glorious. Averaged about 35-40 mph for the next 40 miles. I ran out of gears.

^ wow. I grew up there (well, not exactly there, but that country) but I was a kid and never thought about the wind except how much fun it was to walk/ride in it.

Me too. I ride on roads exactly like the ones in the video.

This is the type of darn crossed wind im talking about is just ridiculous. You really get used to it tho...

Close. Been blown off the road and lost it, on the grass luckily.