I’m fond of remarking on this site that there are very few weather conditions that will keep me from riding. This is mostly true - I tend to draw the line primarily on situations that impair visibility, both for myself and, more importantly, for the motor vehicle operators with which a share the road. This means fog, heavy rain, and heavy or blowing and drifting snow. And given that I’m sitting on a fairly sizeable conductor on the open roadway, I tend to shy away from lightening as well. But I realized over the past couple of weeks that there is another weather condition that sometimes keeps me out of the trike seat:
The wind.
To be clear, it’s not just any wind. I live in Northern Illinois, on the open prairie. I’d simply never ride if a windy day were enough to keep me home all by itself. But there are days, particularly in the spring, where we have winds that run steadily over twenty miles per hour, with gusts another 10-15mph above that.
The wind hasn’t been on my list because, in my head at least, it doesn’t keep me home. Looking through Cyclemeter for the past year (the premium version records weather conditions for rides) I can find outings with winds up to 25mph. What I will do is try to “front load” the portion that is against the wind - ride into the wind for the first half of the trip, as much as possible, so that I’m getting a boost for the latter half. And you can get quite a boost indeed.
That all being the case, as I said, the wind just hasn’t been on that list. But this past week I hit the end of the day, and I had an opportunity to ride. However, it was a very blustery day - winds probably gusting up to 30-35mph against a steady backdrop over 20mph. Just walking out to the mailbox was unpleasant, and as I was making that walk I began to debate as to whether to get out the trike.
I did not get it out.
The fact that it was the end of a workday - so I was already more fatigued than I would be, say, early in the afternoon on a Saturday - probably contributed to that decision. Being a little worn out already, the idea of pushing my way through the the gusts just wasn’t something that seemed attractive. It was definitely a combined effect.
And I realize now, looking back over the site here, that I’ve had the debate in the past about how windy is too windy. But on that occasion, I did go ahead and ride (and that was in February). But this time I let the wind beat me.
So yesterday I was planning to go into town for the afternoon to help the ‘rents sort out their annual tithe to the federal government. It’s just over five miles into town, so it’s not a long trip by any stretch of the imagination. The sun was shining, and the temperature was working it’s way up to a high in the low 80’s (F). By most markers it was almost the perfect scenario for a ride.
Almost. But the winds in the morning had already tipped up into the 20mph range, and it seemed like each time I checked it was going up - now 21… now 23… all coming in from south by southwest. And town, for the record, is directly to the south.
This left me frequently looking out the window at the swaying tree branches and waves in the grass and mentally debating. But, ultimately, wind is a part of spring. If I continue to let it beat me, to keep me home, I might as well just take the season off, and that I’m not willing to do.
So I grabbed my gear (and my big-boy pants) and set up the trike.
I actually had a couple of things to take in to my folks that would not fit in the pannier bags or on top of the rack, so I hooked up my trailer, and headed out.
Immediately after I rolled out the driveway and headed to the south I could feel it - that wind, pushing back against me. This is a feeling everyone who does cycling becomes familiar with. It’s the realization that everything that you normally do on the machine - the spinning of the pedals, the breathing, the forward progress - just works less. It’s a little like working at a job for years, but now suddenly you are getting half the pay.
My average speed over the ride into town came in at 9.5mph. By way of comparison, my average speed for the month of April was 13.7mph. I’m sure that the trailer slowed me down a little bit too, but I made better time on a very similar ride with the trailer and two five gallon gas cans, so most of the impact was from the wind.
But I arrived intact. Well - mostly. When I parked and got up off the trike and turned around I was dismayed to see that only the bottom half of my flag pole - the part without, you know, the flag on it - was still attached. It appears that, at some point in the ride, the wind caught it just right and separated the two halves. I’d actually had this happen once before, but under very different circumstances, but it’s still disconcerting.
In what felt a little bit like cheating, I asked my Dad to drive back over the route with me to find it. Maybe I should have ridden back to look for it, but:
A) I was there to help them with something, and riding back to look would have taken quite a while; and 2) I didn’t want to.
We found the flag in the middle of the road about a mile and a half or so out of town. It was still intact, light on it still flashing. So that was a relief.
As one might imagine, the return trip was… better. I had been a little concerned that it would be one of those days when Mother Nature decided she would have a little fun and, say, flip the wind direction completely around partway through the afternoon. But she was uncharacteristically kind this time around, and that southwest wind abetted my return trip - at least somewhat. It doesn’t seem like that oblique wind angle was nearly as helpful from behind as it was a hindrance working against me, but it was still better.
And the flag stayed on all the way home. I’d thank the fates for that too, but I taped it together before I started back…
According to Cyclemeter, the wind speed during my trip was 32mph. I’m not sure exactly when in a trip the weather info represents - e.g. beginning, end, or somewhere in-between - but I’d believe that wind speed as a beginning point.
And all in all tho, I got to ride. And in the end, isn’t that the important part?