Wind or hills?

[User169]

Wind is awful and there's a lot of it here.

 

[avsd]

I chant the mantra that a headwind is my friend extra training effort with not extra distance but after an hour or so the wind begins to wear you down. In the UK it is hard to find a hill that will last for a hour

 

[Fnaar]

I think my last 4 or 5 weekend rides have been horribly windy... I love hills, I seek then out on purpose, and I can put up with the wind, but I find myself longing for a decent ride when I'm not battling against it!!!

 

[Wobblers]

I much prefer hills. You get a view, you get a rest when you go back down it and you even get to say "Wheeeee!!!" as you're doing so.

What is all this talk about tail winds? They don't exist. Actually, that's not quite true, they do, but only as a means of fooling you. So after thirty miles when you turn round for home and then suddenly realise exactly why all those miles felt so easy, and now you've got a horrible relentless slog back against a headwind that will unaccountably strengthen rapidly...

 

[Wobblers]

Makes no difference, power is power! xxxW uphill is no different to xxxW into a headwind, or even xxxW with a tailwind. The only difference is you will go at different speeds for your xxxW, but the amount of work is the same!

That's not strictly true. If I may sully the thread with physics (sorry), work is power multiplied by time. A head wind will slow you down so you'll take longer, hence have to expend more work to travel the same distance.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Wind is awful and there's a lot of it here.

It's all the strong beer you've been drinking...

 

[colly]

Hills for me definitely. I look forward to them in a perverse kind of way.
I found that with a strong headwind the trick is not to battle it. Just go at what you can manage, even if it's a crawl.

 

[Peter Armstrong]

Hills, I hate wind,

 

[GrasB]

That's not strictly true. If I may sully the thread with physics (sorry), work is power multiplied by time. A head wind will slow you down so you'll take longer, hence have to expend more work to travel the same distance.

Er...
250w up a ave 5% gradient = 5m 45s per mile give or take.
250w in to a 25mph head wind = 5m 30s per mile give or take.

 

[Rob3rt]

That's not strictly true. If I may sully the thread with physics (sorry), work is power multiplied by time. A head wind will slow you down so you'll take longer, hence have to expend more work to travel the same distance.

Hills also slow you down!

However, I will say this, I used the term work poorly and rather loosely, placing it outside of its definition as written (as I was thinking, but obviously did not communicate, in terms of equivalent finite periods of time) so you are correct in that regard. You got me!

 

[Wobblers]

Er...
250w up a ave 5% gradient = 5m 45s per mile give or take.
250w in to a 25mph head wind = 5m 30s per mile give or take.

<more physics, feel free to look away now>

And freewheeling on the descent afterwards? You need to factor in the gain in gravitational potential energy - which is returned on the desecent - "what goes up must come down". (Yes, you can pedal too, but as wind resistance increases as the square of the velocity means you'll get much less benefit than you expect. Put simply, the amount of energy used to move one metre increases as the square of the velocity difference between you and the surrounding air. This is also the reason why you don't get as much benefit from a tail wind than you might expect.)

 

[4F]

Rule 5

 

[threebikesmcginty]

Rule 5

Never drink downstream from the herd????

 

[gavroche]

<more physics, feel free to look away now>

And freewheeling on the descent afterwards? You need to factor in the gain in gravitational potential energy - which is returned on the desecent - "what goes up must come down". (Yes, you can pedal too, but as wind resistance increases as the square of the velocity means you'll get much less benefit than you expect. Put simply, the amount of energy used to move one metre increases as the square of the velocity difference between you and the surrounding air. This is also the reason why you don't get as much benefit from a tail wind than you might expect.)

 

[Wobblers]

Hey, you can't say I didn't warn you!