Wind speeds and your ride.

dodgeman

dodgeman

Well-Known Member
Region
USA
City
Macomb, Illinois
I live in Western Illinois and do most of my riding near my house. There are hills and trees but most of it’s wide open and the wind can beat you to death. I estimate I’ve taken 170 rides on my e bike. I’d say two of those were a dead calm. So the following is my feel for the wind when I ride.

Dead calm: spectacular riding, a must ride day and very rare
0-5 mph: still great riding but you do feel it
5-10 mph: not bad, very common in this area, the wind is somewhat annoying though
10-15 mph: also common around here and the wind is annoying
15-20 mph: also not uncommon and the wind is starting to take the fun out of it.
over 20 mph: I leave the bike in the garage, it makes for a miserable ride
 
Its gusting to 62 mph today and I'm staying indoors. Even with a helmet, a tree limb could break off and break my neck or back. A power line could fall and electrocute me. I'm missing a concert I paid for right now. WInds are supposed to peak at 1300, right as the concert lets out. I now watch TV news daily since weather.gov won't identify wind events closer than 12 hours and won't separate predictions for locations 60 miles apart like Elizabethtown KY or Scottsburg, IN. I won't go out on bike above 45 mph gusts.
I bought the electric kit to cope with wind. Before 2018 wind was up March and October November. Now December, January,. February, April, May, September are added. Tornados in winter snow storms! It took me 6 hours to make 27 miles September 2018 at 90 deg F. Too much exercise. Now wind below 40 mph, I can motor home 9 mph just like no power. I don't really want to average 25 mph on calm days, my last fall at that speed broke my chin.
Everybody sell your car and bike walk or ride bus everywhere. I do. Transportation & climate control are ruining the planet. It will only get worse at 2.5 C average rise. Electric cars are not going to reduce CO2 emissions, just move them to the power plant. I heat to 65 F, cool to 80 F to prevent moldy furniture.
 
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If I left my bike in the garage when the wind is over 20mph I would hardly ever ride, if its under 20mph like today its unusual for here... I'm happy to ride in winds up to 35mph, above that it does start to get a bit dodgy! I did ride in 40mph winds last month and it was a bit scary at times, especially the crosswinds! My bike has the power to take on strong winds but of course the batteries take a big hit....
 
Poland is so different from where you live @dodgeman, and it is different from Scotland where Rab lives. My country is of moderate climate. Most of the days in a year are windy but usually not dramatically. (Let me use mph here).
  • There are mostly westerly winds in Poland, and the wind speed that makes me irritated is 13-15 mph. This is the kind of wind that I especially notice during the wintertime and I have to cope with it. However, a wind of that speed is a blessing during the warm season, as it is providing cooling for the body.
  • A calm day (or one with a very weak wind) during the summertime is one I choose for riding the Imperial Century. (It must happen on the day I'm free from the work!)
  • I case of a very strong gale, I put my e-bike on a train, travel far into the wind, and then I'm "sailing" with tailwind, which is a nice experience :) (I actually recorded two such rides both during the wintertime, 2022 and 2023. Both were fast rides of approximately 45 miles with relatively small use of the battery).
I often go on forest rides during annoyingly strong wind: The trees dampen the wind very much.

Well... I often use the phrase: "Wind? If does not pertain to an e-biker!" :) True fact is I can cope with a reasonably strong headwind on my full power e-bike but riding my low power e-bike under such conditions is a challenge.
 
dodgeman said:
I live in Western Illinois and do most of my riding near my house.
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Also in Western IL and wind direction influences our riding as well as velocity.

We have a couple of routes that change depending on wind direction. Wind isn't as important to us as it was on analogs.
 
Yesterday, I was on a 24 km grocery shopping rides on my low power e-bike. Properly dressed, yes. After I returned home, I looked in the mirror and noticed how the cold wind had "beaten" my face!
 
Stefan Mikes said:
Yesterday, I was on a 24 km grocery shopping rides on my low power e-bike. Properly dressed, yes. After I returned home, I looked in the mirror and noticed how the cold wind had "beaten" my face!
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Wind can be unpleasant in so many ways.

The same high-steel workers built all the famous US suspension bridges back in the 1920s and 1930s — George Washington, Brooklyn, Verazzano Narrows, Golden Gate, etc. They worked on these bridges year-round, including through many a cold, snowy northern winter.

Yet, when the surviving workers were interviewed for the book Spanning the Gate, all of them said that the coldest bridge they'd worked on by far was the Golden Gate. Why? The constant 20-knot wind blowing moist 50°F air off the Pacific.

I can relate: Had plenty of days like that on the ground in my time in SF, and we get winter days like that here in San Diego County. Just can't imagine that kind of wind all day, every day for months on end.
 
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I worked on a wind farm the last year I retired and got to looking at wind charts. The west part of Illinois is pretty good for wind and gets worse as you go east. I know Kansas and Oklahoma are better. Of course what’s good for a wind farm is bad for biking.
 
Mulezen said:
I no longer care to ride in much wind in part because of the sound shield…maybe its the hearing aids
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Try these:

Cat-Ears.com | Cat-Ears, LLC | United States

Cat-Ears is the leading manufacturer of aero-acoustically designed passive wind noise reduction products for serious cyclists. Tested and recommended by respected publications and professionals, Cat-Ears / AirStreamz are 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed and Made in the USA.
www.cat-ears.com www.cat-ears.com

I've been using them for a couple of years now and they really work to suppress wind noise.
 
Here in the Phoenix Valley, winter winds are highly unpredictable. This winter has been -20F degrees below normal. However, when the temps exceed 100F biking becomes a good exercise alternative because the cooling wind generated from riding is quite pleasant.
 
Jeremy McCreary said:
Wind can be unpleasant in so many ways.

The same high-steel workers built all the famous US suspension bridges back in the 1920s and 1930s — George Washington, Brooklyn, Verazzano Narrows, Golden Gate, etc. They worked on these bridges year-round, including through many a cold, snowy northern winter.

Yet, when the surviving workers were interviewed for the book Spanning the Gate, all of them said that the coldest bridge they'd worked on by far was the Golden Gate. Why? The constant 20-knot wind blowing moist 50°F air off the Pacific.

I can relate: Had plenty of days like that on the ground in my time in SF, and we get winter days like that here in San Diego County. Just can't imagine that kind of wind all day, every day for months on end.
Click to expand...

an interesting anecdote! not quite sure it rings true though - the brooklyn bridge was built in 1869, the golden gate in 1933, the verrazano 1959. maybe the reference bridges other than the golden gate were different ones.

i ride the golden gate several times a week, and it can be pretty fierce. but nothing like the cold winds that come off the great lakes, or at higher elevations or in true winter climates. we californians are a bit soft :)

i did a ride through the marin headlands on one of the extremely windy days a few weeks ago. gusts were up to 70mph at peak, but “only” around 35mph when i was up there. very stressful in any direction relative to the wind and i can’t imagine it being possible on a more upright bicycle. i was getting blown around like crazy.

9028CA33-377F-4181-AC19-5699B24A92F1.jpeg
 
mschwett said:
an interesting anecdote! not quite sure it rings true though - the brooklyn bridge was built in 1869, the golden gate in 1933, the verrazano 1959. maybe the reference bridges other than the golden gate were different ones.
Click to expand...
Thanks for setting the record straight. Been a while since I read the book and could easily have remembered the wrong reference bridges.

I was living in Sausalito at the time and recall being quite impressed with the book, the interviews, and especially the many photos. The workers interviewed did work on other bridges, and they did find the Golden Gate especially cold. Next time I go to storage, I"ll have to dig it out and see where I went wrong.
 
6zfshdb said:
The Tacoma Narrows Bridge or "Galloping Gerdie" would have given you quite a ride:

Skip forward to 3:47

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You'd probably been OK on a full suspension bike 🙃

Here in the Hudson Valley... wind chill is more of a factor when riding than strong sustained winds which typically only happen during weather events... obviously there are exceptions
 
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