Now living in Oklahoma I have to get used to riding in the wind. If I didn't ride in the wind, I would never end up riding, alright that is not strictly true but you get the idea. I like to think of winds as mountains, when it is really blowing I get to try the really steep climbs or descents depending on direction of travel.
Since I'm a numbers/data kind of guy I wanted to see how much of a difference a head vs tail wind makes... As I don't have a power meter yet, they are a big investment, power meter or flight back to the UK? All of this is has no power data and as such I'm going off feel and HR data.
I am also using a really cool program (which is free) I found online which takes all the wind data and applies it to your ride. Head over to mywindsock.com for all your geeking out.
Yesterday during my ride I got the opportunity to test this out. On the way out I had a slight tail wind of around 7 mph. On the return the wind had picked up to 9mph headwind which is still pretty low for this area but definitely noticeable.
The segments I picked are gravel segments which are around 4 miles long. They run North or South, alternative options in this area would run East or West, it is all pedalling in squares in this area. Given the length of the segment, this is a sustaining power test rather than an all out sprint effort.
Segment 1 - Gravel Sara
Segment 2 - Gravel Sara South bound
The fact I am currently top of both of the leader boards (at the time of this post) is less due to my speed and more due to the lack of people who have ridden the segment.
For both runs on Friday I was trying to keep my HR below 175bpm (zone 4 for me) which is where I tend to blow up and I have to drop my speed significantly to recover.
Data from the ride
Segment 1 -
Time 10:54,
19.9 mph ave,
Ave HR 169 BPM,
Max HR 177 BPM
6-7mph tail wind
Segment 2 -
Time 14:01,
16.6 mph ave,
Ave HR 167 BPM,
Max HR 175 BPM
8-9mph head wind
Conclusion
Even with slight tailwind the advantage for me is significant, way more than I thought thought it would make. The difference between the runs on Friday was around 3.3mph.
Chasing KOMs/PRs is obviously best done with a tailwind. And hence if I get a PR on the road here, there is a good chance I had some sort of tail wind or am riding in a group.
This is not to say I won't put in efforts into a headwind. For me it is a great way to get stronger and improve my fitness.
I currently feel around 9mph is where I really start to feel the headwinds, once the wind gets up to around 18mph it is comparable to a pretty steep gradient, great for my hill training without hills program.
Above 25mph I will definitely question if I should be riding on the roads as I start to feel pretty unsafe around traffic, especially when riding solo.
The KOM I have for the southbound direction was achieved with a 9mph NW wind, a cross tail wind on this segment, very similar wind conditions to my KOM on the northbound segment on which I achieved on Friday.
Finally I am not a KOM chaser normally. I would definitely categorise myself as a, just improve my fitness kind of guy and Strava is a great way to do this as it gives me a way to compare segments to my previous attempts with HR data all easily accessible.
I always try and ride with the attitude "if you are not having fun why are you even out there." So on that note, here are a couple of photos from my ride on Friday. It WAS FANTASTIC!
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| Red dirt and empty roads! |
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| Harvesting the wind |
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| Lots of red dirt and the occasional stop sign |
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| Smile like you mean it! |
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