I see lots of discussion of range but what about headwind/tailwind?

[BlackHand]

If your helmet gas a GoPro mount you could try one of these

 

[Dallant]

If your helmet gas a GoPro mount you could try one of these

View attachment 68236

That would be fun!

 

[Alaskan]

If only I had waves to judge by! I used to watch the waves when I was sailboarding and I had a good friend who was a sailboarder/meteorologist and always brought an anemometer with him.
Seriously, they do make some fairly cheap anemometers if I get serious enough about it. I’ve seen and used that Bosch calculator and I do like it.

On land if you start observing the effect of winds on smokestacks, trees, bushes and grasses, and refer to the Land side of Beaufort's scale, a more intuitive sense of how hard it is blowing will evolve. There is a reason the Beaufort scale is still in use for over 200 years. It is incredibly useful.

One smoke signal not mentioned is that when the smoke is actually blown down on the lee side of a smoke stack or chimney, it is blowing around 25-30 mph and probably time to leave your bike at home

 

[Alaskan]

If your helmet gas a GoPro mount you could try one of these

View attachment 68236

Now if it only had a bluetooth connection to your phone and other devices, like a Nyon

 

[Tars Tarkas]

Kestrel makes some high quality handheld weather instruments, many of which include much more than wind measurement. Look at Google or on Amazon. If you just want wind, the price is fairly low, although for nothing but wind you can certainly pay less. I have the Kestrel 5500 and use a lot. Link It could be mounted on handlebars or somewhere. And it has a wind vane option that will let you see and calculate the wind direction compared to your travel direction.

TT

 

[Dallant]

On land if you start observing the effect of winds on smokestacks, trees, bushes and grasses, and refer to the Land side of Beaufort's scale, a more intuitive sense of how hard it is blowing will evolve. There is a reason the Beaufort scale is still in use for over 200 years. It is incredibly useful.

One smoke signal not mentioned is that when the smoke is actually blown down on the lee side of a smoke stack or chimney, it is blowing around 25-30 mph and probably time to leave your bike at home

Here in the Midwest we judge it by the degree of bend of the corn stalks or dust and chaf sent into the wind during harvesting. As you can see in the image below, I have a good tailwind going there and it’s approximately a 10-15 mph wind.

 

[Luto]

I like to turn my torso to "sail" with the wind. Just like when skiing on a flat traverse on a windy ridge (with good wax), you can turn your body and sail across the flats.

 

[Dallant]

I like to turn my torso to "sail" with the wind. Just like when skiing on a flat traverse on a windy ridge (with good wax), you can turn your body and sail across the flats.

That’s another good reason to have bar ends in addition to flat bars. Bar ends allow me to sit much more upright so tailwinds are more useful/effective as flats keep me lower in the headwinds.

 

[Art Deco]

@indianajo seems to be the only member that talks about headwinds much, but he has long flat rides hauling heavy, bulky loads. The few times I've been out in high wind, it was raining too, so I was trying to go fast to get to shelter. That really knocks the battery range down ... probably about half.

 

[Dallant]

@indianajo seems to be the only member that talks about headwinds much, but he has long flat rides hauling heavy, bulky loads. The few times I've been out in high wind, it was raining too, so I was trying to go fast to get to shelter. That really knocks the battery range down ... probably about half.

I started this thread to talk about it but there really isn’t much to do or say about it. The wind seems to be much more pronounced since last September but maybe that is just my imagination. Higher winds and much more often.

 

[K PierreR]

I have been out in pretty strong headwinds with the e bike. Probably 30+ mph. The wind mentally bothers me because I can't really do the math in my head for the optimal speed to go in order to maximize battery. It would be easy if it wasn't a squared function.
Wind resistance goes up by the squared function. Double the speed and quadruple the resistance. The problem is you already have a wind resistance at near zero so going very slow is far worse on battery than going faster. Maximizing in that much headwind seems to be in and around the 11-12 mph (17-19 kph). In any case, I see watt hours per mile in the mid to upper 30's. The worst I have had is around 60 watt hours per mile with 6-8" of snow and 30+ mph headwinds. You laugh its so bad and of course you end up in drifts.

Yeah that is a full body divot.

 

[Dallant]

I have been out in pretty strong headwinds with the e bike. Probably 30+ mph. The wind mentally bothers me because I can't really do the math in my head for the optimal speed to go in order to maximize battery. It would be easy if it wasn't a squared function.
Wind resistance goes up by the squared function. Double the speed and quadruple the resistance. The problem is you already have a wind resistance at near zero so going very slow is far worse on battery than going faster. Maximizing in that much headwind seems to be in and around the 11-12 mph (17-19 kph). In any case, I see watt hours per mile in the mid to upper 30's. The worst I have had is around 60 watt hours per mile with 6-8" of snow and 30+ mph headwinds. You laugh its so bad and of course you end up in drifts.

Yeah, I am curious enough to have pondered an anemometer but I really don’t ponder my battery use vs the wind as there’s nothing I can do about it besides go/no go. At this point I just use the wind speed/direction indicator on my watch, though I have no idea where that measurement is taken from or it’s accuracy.

 

[indianajo]

I do think wind is worse this year in North America. Was gusting 22 mph yesterday. Usually I stay home when the reports say that but there have been too many days of that. I had to go out & buy some things @ HD. I pedal myself up to 12 mph headwind, but after that I burn some watthours. Only carry the bulky loads sometimes. 2 weeks ago a 26"x27"x16" cabinet to turn into a speaker. Today is grocery day: those will fit in the panniers. My range is limited mainly by how long I can stand to sit down. Selle Comfy Couch was not available 2 weeks ago, I bought a evo cruiser 218 saddle. Ho, hum. At least it has rails so the workman saddle doesn't turn on the post converter.

 

[Art Deco]

Another point about wind that @Marci jo made in another thread is that you can't see it. At least you can see the top of a hill and know there's a downhill coming, not so with wind.

 

[K PierreR]

From years of being involved in boats and airplanes I can guess the wind pretty closely to it's actual speed. What people may not understand is that when you are in motion, you are feeling the apparent wind or the wind plus your speed. That is a vector addition of wind and motion. For this reason headwinds are always encountered more often than tailwinds and tailwinds are always lighter. It's not a conspiracy against you by nature.

 

[Dallant]

From years of being involved in boats and airplanes I can guess the wind pretty closely to it's actual speed. What people may not understand is that when you are in motion, you are feeling the apparent wind or the wind plus your speed. That is a vector addition of wind and motion. For this reason headwinds are always encountered more often than tailwinds and tailwinds are always lighter. It's not a conspiracy against you by nature.

I spent years sailboarding and got to play with sail vs board vs current directions/speeds.

 

[Gionnirocket]

The only time I check wind speed is in the winter and near my cut off low temp of about 38°f. But this is more for wind chill than headwind resistance.

 

[Saratoga Dave]

My favorite part of a windy day is when you ride about 20 miles in one direction and think, wow, I feel great today... then turn for home and find out why.

16mph straight wind out of the west here this morning, so i actually did it right... 18 miles winding around mostly into it along the Erie Canal bike path, then 12 miles home like a shot, due east on a road with a big shoulder. 18 -24 mph all the way back across the flats.

 

[m@Robertson]

Best way to find optimal speed with a mid drive: Keep the motor spinning. Same rule in all conditions. If you bog the motor, a higher portion of the amps you are pumping out are going to generation of heat vs. forward motion. I do that with pedal assist that I have already modulated so its efficient and doesn't run away from me. Using a mid on throttle burns juice at an enormous rate so have to keep the thumb on the bars.

Beyond that, I make sure I have the biggest battery that will fit in the assigned space. Between the two I pretty much ride the way I want and don't worry about it further.

Thats assuming a mid drive. With a hub, all you can really do is hammer thru it with hi PAS. Maybe drop down a couple of gears to help the motor along and maintain cadence. My hub commuter is 2wd with a 31ah battery on a 15.5 mile route, so I am not exactly constrained.

Its warming up here so I can expect headwinds in the morning and really strong, 20-30 mph headwinds on the ride back in the evening. The slab sides of the Bullitt with its cargo box should prove interesting this year.

 

[K PierreR]

All of this makes my old head spin. I have to think that an actual 30mph continuous headwind is actually very rare as according to the wind resistance math I have seen, nobody could actually ride against it without power and I see people claiming to all the time. Something is amiss.
My cursory math seems to suggest that against a 30 mph headwind, maxing out the power and speed at high cadence is the more mileage efficient way to go. Now I think the math is right but that just does not seem right. I gotta think about it some more.