Winds in the plains states.
 

I'm considering a cross country tour. The route would probably take me on a rough line from Columbus, OH to Denver.

For a number or reasons, I'd rather ride east to west, but I'm curious about how strong and prevalent the prevailing westerlies are. I'm not in a mood to fight strong winds for a thousand miles, so would reverse direction if that's likely.

So, those who've done the ride, what were the winds in the plains like? Should I really factor them, or they're not enough of an issue, and I should stick to my "Go West..." plan?

Thanks

Reminder, I can use a weather map, so I'm looking only for first hand experience.

After reading your post, I don't think there's much to say.

What time of year would you be riding? Are you willing to get up and ride at first crack of light to avoid winds as they generally pick up as the air warms up and the day wears on? My first hand experience, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri only.

It would be late spring/early summer to avoid heat in the plains, and be warmer in the Rockies (as much as this is possible). Thanks for the heads up about the ride early issue. I'm more used to that effect with coastal winds, but didn't know it made a difference without an ocean.

FWIW, I'm not usually a morning person, but do start rides pretty early with plans to wind them up by mid afternoon, but having to wind them up early in the afternoon may be an issue for me.

Something to think about.

:giver:

I've lived over 30 years in Kansas, in both ends of the state. I haven't toured straight through the Great Plains, but I've ridden many touring-distance days in every direction on the plains. I ride every day, so I think about and experience the wind out here as a matter of course. When I do ride the plains straight across, wind won't factor into which direction I go. While you may get more west wind days than east, you're at least as likely to get several days of sustained 20+ mph winds from the south. Or it might be still for a day or two. You can be sure you're going to get real wind more often than not in late spring/early summer, but from where, for how long, and much of it no one can tell you. Riding as early in the day as possible will help as the wind usually dies down at night.

Maybe it's more predictable as you approach the front range, but here in the middle it's hard to say, and no one's week-long trip experience is going to help predict what it will be when you're here. I'll attest that hours of a 20 mph headwind day after day can be discouraging, but as far as planning goes, historical weather data will be as helpful as anything else.

In any case, the plains make for beautiful riding.

Most of my experience with the Great Plains comes from the Texas panhandle, but I've also done four long tours in the American West. Kansas, 'fraid not, but that's about 40 miles from the panhandle, with nothing in between that can block the wind. Close enough.

In the western states, the wind will almost always come out of the west or southwest in late spring and summer. As mentioned already, it picks up throughout the day, so you've got two reasons to wake up early: avoid wind, avoid heat. And if that's not enough, starting early means finishing early, which gives you a chance to visit stores, libraries, etc. while they're still open.

On an "average" day, I'd say the wind would be roughly 5 mph in the morning, 15 mph in the afternoon. Sometimes less, sometimes more. Every so often, a lot more.

There's usually a little less wind in the middle of summer, more in spring, so you could consider later dates, but that means it's also going to be hotter. Or you could reverse direction, which would not only give you tailwind most of the time, but you'd also go downhill more often than not. Whatever your reasons for going westbound, do you consider them more important than headwind vs. tailwind, uphill vs. downhill? Up to you.

I've been east to west and west to east across this route a few times.
It doesn't make much difference.
In the summer afternoon it's almost always from the south.
It's strong and will blow you off the road or into traffic so the previous advise about riding early in the morning is correct.

I stand corrected. it's much safer to be blown off the road going east to west.

Southerly winds were also our experience riding west to east across Wyoming, Nebraska and Iowa. There seemed to days of strong quartering headwinds, SE winds.

Riding west to east across the Canadian Prairies was mostly headwinds with a few days of tailwinds ; just enough tailwinds to raise the spirits. There did not seem to be much in the middle.

I think it is just a crapshoot, and you take what you get.

Winds out of the SE are typical for the plains in Summer and that is what we found on the TA. I think that the winds are a minor factor in choosing direction of travel for your ride.

I have found that for rides like my TA other factors were more important. For example I like to get the long distance air travel out of the way upfront because it is easy to know when you will start a tour and harder to know when you will finish.

Getting a lot of your mileage in early in the day helps a lot with managing the impact of the winds on your tour.

I did this route and the only real day of tailwinds I remember was in Utah. I do remember a lot of headwinds as I got into MS, AL, and GA, but I was tired at that point and they probably weren't as bad as I thought.

People who live there could give you better advice than people who've passed through. I've learned a lot more from living in NV for years than I learned from a few days riding across the plains of TX and OK.

I have no personal experience riding in the plains states, but.... ;)


Seriously...Having ridden in OH, IN, IL, IA, SD, ND, MT, CO, etc., I have to agree with those that say that wind is not an important factor. Lots of days with headwinds and crosswinds crossing the country west to east.

It's a shame you can't ride later in the year because here in central Illinois and Indiana, the corn can provide a much desired windbreak reaching 7 or 8 feet high or taller. Unfortunately you'll be riding too early in the year for that to be available. I cry every year when they begin harvesting by mid September.

When I rode the TransAm (westbound), I complained about the wind just about every day from the middle of Missouri, across Kansas, and eastern Colorado. It almost always felt like a headwind.


But the funny thing about this "headwind" was that it was coming out of the S-SSW most of the time. You could watch the trucks coming towards you, and the ones with fairings passed quietly. The most squared-off trucks, though, would hit you with a shock wave that would smack into your face. Never got a push from trucks coming behind me, though!


The advice to start early is spot on. The wind doesn't pick up until about 11:00 at the earliest, and you'll often get light winds until 1-2:00. Start at 6:00 in the morning, you'll have 5-6 hours of pleasant riding.


Jobst Brandt wrote an explanation of why a cross wind feels like a headwind. It involved some vector calculations, and after I'd experienced the phenomenon, I understood his explanation. It may be available in one of the usenet archives.

This is perhaps a strong argument against frame bags.

Thanks for the info.

I have plenty of flexibility, both on dates and direction. It's just that the timing of various things makes east to west preferable, but I'm not locked in to it. I'm just trying to get a sense of things, so I can balance the considerations for a nice trip.

Even the route is totally flexible, except that I have a niece in Denver, and if I ride past, even way past, as in Wyoming, and don't visit, I'll never be forgiven. So, I either go through Denver or keep the trip secret from the family.

I never plan a tour based on wind. Here's why. You can't ever really predict much!

http://memory.org/point.b/windmap_may21.png

You get the Winds in the Spring.
You get The Heat in the Summer.

No way to beat a wind.

To beat the Heat Leave early in the AM and be finished by 12 N-1 PM.

Just one more piece of advice based on my personal experience: While corn in IN and IL may provide windbreak later in the summer, I would have gladly taken the wind over the temperatures and ultra-high humidity I experienced in late July/early August. In Huntington, IN it topped out at 106. The nighttime low in Fletcher Lake, IN was a frosty 85 with no breeze. One sunny, humid 100 degree day in IL the tar used to seal cracks in the road became so soft that it stuck to our tires and splattered onto our down tubes. At the end of the day my tires and frame had sand and tiny gravel pieces stuck to them. And corn provides zero shade.


Bring lights. Several days a few of us started out in the dark to get a jump on the heat. It was extremely foggy, and the fog lasted into the morning before being burned off by the blazing sun. Not good conditions for seeing or being seen.

There are times I sure will. Doin' the Pacific Coast, better north to south for example. Heading across my home region by June, winds almost always have a southern or westerly orientation. Rarely from the north or due east but it can happen. We were touring across IL and IN several years ago and hit three hellacious days of easterly winds, by the third day, I was up and riding before dawn but that's generally rare.

Btw, indyfabz's talk of high humidity here in the Mississippi/Ohio River valley is vastly overstated, nothing but balmy arid conditions during our mid summer. Tell em' Squeeze how dry it is in St. Louis on a July evening. :lol:

As far as I'm concerned the north-to-south route is preferred because of the view. That's a constant you count on so for me I'd still do it that way even if the general-wind-direction was reversed. If wind and/or weather is horribly bad on any given day, that's my rest day. Weather & wind are always changing that's part of nature & the tour :)

If this is the case I would go to Denver first then go to Wyoming. There will some strong south winds there in the summer. I wouldn't recommend riding directly North to South in Wyoming in the summer if you can help it.

Lots of good info here already. I've lived (and ridden) in Missouri my whole life. Can agree with much above. Typical (if there is such a thing) weather can be somewhat predictable, such as: a cold front comes through - line of (possibly severe) storms, with maybe several hours of rain afterward. The day after it is clear, relatively cool (80's), low humidity (dewpoints in the 50's). NW wind, how strong depends on how strong the cold front was. The second day after the front may have very little or no wind, then over the next few days gradual warming (upper 80's to maybe 90's)and the wind swings around to the SW, dewpoints rise through the 60's, may get into the 70's. After four or five days the cycle starts over. Frequently over the last 24 hours before the next cold front winds can become pretty strong from the SE or E and usually the day of the front it's a strong S or SW right up to the gust front and torrential downpour. There is a lot a variation in the above - not all fronts bring severe storms; sometimes you get under domes of high pressure and it's just hot and dry (usually later in the summer), etc., but the above will give you a bit of an idea of mid-May through June weather in the Missouri - Illinois - Iowa region.

Nebraska native. Lots of miles north/south/east/central. Nothing you can do about the wind. You plan for it, it'll be different. As said, break camp at the crack of dawn and get to your destination by lunch, and you won't get hit bad by the worst of it.


Nebraska in particular can be a bit like Zeeland or Normandy. There's minimal wind blockage so winds have a chance to build off the Rockies....except the (gently) roller-y topography makes for gusty conditions. Some river valleys given the (wrong) conditions can act like windtunnels. We did a ride from Callaway-Holdredge one year. That was hell on earth. 30MPH sustained surface winds in a flat-flat river valley with no wind blocks for 80 miles.

Last few years due to better-than-average rainfalls, even the Sandhills in NE were verdant and green.

Another option, if you are not really interested in riding through Denver, is to contact niece/family and invite them to drive to meet you when you are near Denver (e.g. Wyoming). If they don't visit you, then the forgiveness situation won't be an issue.