Mr. Windy takes on riding when it's blowing
By Mark Parman Maybe I'm getting old or weak, probably both, but this spring seemed particularly windy – the flag snapping out straight every day – and the summer hasn't been much better. The wind raged from the northwest this spring, cold fronts screaming down from Canada, then from the
northeast bringing cold rain and some even colder May snow. With summer, it's switched around to the west, the southwest and occasionally the southeast.  The other day, with the temperature climbing into the upper 80s and the dew point in the upper 60s, I
was for once glad for the stiff breeze out of the southwest. Into the wind, I had to grind up the hills, even the slightest of grades, putting my head down and simply turning the pedals. I didn't even look up when the red–winged blackbirds dive bombed me from their electric pole perches. But that wind cooled me off.
When I clocked around and rode with the wind at my back, sweat
dripped off my nose, splatting on the top tube. It dripped down off the pads in my helmet, stinging my eyes. Without the breeze in my face, I quickly heated up and drained both my oversized bottles, and I didn't have change for a Big Gulp, so I kept right on dealing past several convenience stores. At least I had the wind at my back, pushing me home.
For something we can't see, the wind has tremendous power. The night
following my warm ride, a cold front slammed into the warm, moist air over northcentral Wisconsin, and then we really had some wind. Just west of Wausau, a tornado touched down for a block in Abbottsford, demolishing a feed mill and smashing up some cars at a used car lot. Even more impressive were the branches impaled into houses. A friend calls these Thor's arrows. And this was only a wimpy F1 tornado, the second weakest twister on the Fujita scale.
I find myself thinking about the wind often, looking up into trees, or at flags or smoke stacks, like the paper mill in Brokaw, to judge its strength or direction. Every road ride I take, unless someone else is leading, I head into the wind and come home with it. Upwind, downwind, that's my mantra.
Twenty years ago in Iowa City, when I first started riding seriously, I was taught to ride this way, and maybe that's because the wind blows
there all the time. It's mostly flat in southeast Iowa and the land is wide open, full section corn and bean fields, and sometimes the wind howls mercilessly across the open expanses, like it does over water.
On one spring ride, I remember a rider, who was also a strong runner, picking up his bike, shouldering it like a cyclocrosser and running past the rest of the group on a slight uphill. He cycled in tennis shoes on cold
days because he felt they kept his feet warmer. This was in the day of toe clips and straps.
Into vicious crosswinds, we learned to lean into the wind, trusting that it would hold us up rather than waiting for it to push us over. Occasionally, though, the wind won out, gusting through the echelon and causing a crash.
Once a friend, a former national team rider, crashed in these conditions and whacked his head on the pavement, coincidentally on Windham
Road. This was in the days of leather strap helmets. When the group turned around and got back to him, he was unconscious and blood was dripping out his ear. That's the day I started wearing a helmet. When hard–shell helmets came out, I bought one.
There are worse places than Iowa for wind, however: Kansas, Oklahoma, the Texas panhandle, the front range of Colorado. I was once in a breakaway in a road race in Kansas, and the final mile of the
race dropped down a steep hill and finished uphill on the other side. A crosswind was blasting us down the hill, and as we were jockeying for position for the sprint, the wind pushed me into the ditch. It was like somebody placed a hand on my back and shoved me into the weeds. Needless to say, I was the last finisher in that breakaway.
Years ago a friend of mine was training north of Fort Collins, east of the mountains. The wind got so bad that it picked up a cattle feeder, a small
wooden feed bunk, and slammed it into my friend, breaking his collarbone and finishing off his season. He said he learned later on the news that the gusts that day exceeded 70 miles per hour. Sometimes I think bicycles should be included in the National Weather Service's small craft advisory.
Once in a while back in Iowa, we used the wind to our advantage and did what we called a Wind Ride. First we had to sucker a friend into
driving us out into the wind, which often meant we had to bribe him or her with food or beer. Then we'd load up the car or van, the vehicle that would hold the most riders and bikes, and drive straight into the wind. With a 25 to 35 mph tailwind, we could ride 75 miles in well under three hours. It was like motorpacing behind a semi.
Today I don't have the time to get driven 75 miles into the wind or friends sympathetic enough to get roped into driving. And I'd rather just
ride my bike than ride in a car. Plus, the wind isn't as bad in Wisconsin. We have more trees than Iowa.
I've learned to cope better as well. I've developed several wind rides, loops with the most trees, the most cover, minimizing the force of the wind. Even on my commute, I avoid one route that takes me up a steep hill dead west. Into a northwester, it's a brutal climb in tennis shoes with a backpack full of freshman compositions.
If the wind is really blowing, especially in spring, I ride my mountain bike on gravel roads or on the trails if they're open. Wind is less of a factor on gravel roads and rarely a factor in singletrack, although a few times this spring the wind was so bad I opted to run rather than to ride.
I may be getting older and slower, but I have learned a thing or two in 20 years of riding – like you can't beat the wind. Unless you have a sympathetic friend.
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