Sitting upright during a tailwind?
 

Just wondering: if you want to get as low as possible in a headwind, would you want to get as upright as possible with a tailwind? Does the increase in "caught" air from the back have more advantages over the air resistance you push through?

Depends on how fast the wind is blowing. Think about it.

This.
Lets say you are going 20 mph with a dead on 20 mph tailwind. Up or down would be irrelevant. You would be cycling in a vacum of sorts with no penalty for sitting upright nor benefit from being in the drops.
But your feeling really powerful with this 20 mph tail wind and you crank it up to 28 mph. You now have an apparent headwind of 8mph and are going to feel resistance from the wind and a down position will help you.
But then you get all tuckered out and slow to 15 mph, still with the 20 mph dead on tail wind. Now you sit upright, arms out, erect, and gather the strength of the wind to help you along with no penalty.

'nuff said.

In a tailwind, I try to work out in my mind if there is a proper anti-echelon formation.

/endthread

You might make more power in a less than totally upright position, and that position could be less fatiguing than riding completely upright.

I'm sure we can argue this point further before it needs to be locked.

You get aero unless the wind is going faster than your ground speed. As surgeonstone suggested above.

Just getting warmed up.

Does a tailwind really push you or does it just reduce aerodynamic resistance?

HED has a wind calculator that gives effective wind based upon wind direction, and rider and wind speed that's pretty cool.

http://s321476941.online.de/hedgerma...calculator.asp

Bad news is that most winds, other than a narrow angle of tail winds, end up being effective headwinds for typical riding speeds.

I rode in a steady 50-60 mph wind with gusts up to 80 mph (day before Hurricane George hit land, Florida, in 1999 or 2000). When I sat up and did the "Titanic I'm the King of the World" thing I went about 15-18 mph. I might have seen 20 or 21 mph, I don't remember. When I started pedaling in the drops (sprinting to get to speed and then just spinning my top gear once up to speed) I could sustain 60 mph for about a minute.

For the rest of the ride back I rode in the drops or the tops, mainly because the wind was so strong and any let up (like when the wind goes around a building etc) would wrench the bars hard. I had dual TriSpokes (aka HED3) because we were down there for a race that was unfortunately canceled due to the hurricane so I had no choice but to ride those wheels if I wanted to go ride.

get on a bike, with a 20 mph tailwind directly behind you, don't pedal. See what happens, and you'll have your answer.

Sitting upright during a tailwind?
 

Didn't everyone, when they were kids, unzip your jacket, ride no hands and hold the jacket tails out with your arms. Windbreakers were great for this.

It's go time.

http://www.lmrabicycleclub.com/galle.../sail_bike.jpg

What about the Joey Conjecture? You have a tailwind, say 15 mph. You come up behind a serious-looking cyclist in the low 20's, and your objective is to tire him out and blow past, crushing his spirit. According to his conjecture you should sit up in order to steal his tailwind. Agree or not?

He's still got an effective headwind, so you sitting up wouldn't slow him down.

i think joey goes faster because he absorbs the crushed souls of the cyclists he passes and it gives him some sort of hulk power.

I was thinking that the sound that the open shirt makes, flapping in the wind, sucks the hope out of them. Yet he's convinced that it makes a difference. So assuming for the sake of argument that it does, then the question is how. The effect would have to move upwind somehow (the apparent wind that is). Pressure effects could do that ... although my educated guess is that they'd be slight ...

net tailwind would have to be greater then your forward velocity for that to work

example you're going 45mph and have a 50mph tailwind, then catching more tailwind by sitting up would make you faster

if you're going 45mph with a 40mph tailwind, get low to keep forward momentum

Every once in a while, we get a post from someone who wonders at the perversity of nature because wherever he rides, he has a headwind.

We tend to exaggerate that. I think somewhere about 105° (with 90° being a side wind and 0 being directly in front), every wind at that angle or greater helps the rider. So that's 150 degrees of the circle that's effective tailwinds, regardless of rider and wind speed. Granted it's less than half of it, but it's a pretty good range that's not an effective headwind.