Riding into a headwind

The steeper the climb or the stronger the headwind the second you don’t have force on the pedal you slow immediately. Maybe it’s subtle for some and confusing for others as we have 20-24 gears to choose from to vary cadence which changes how a rider applies torque. Think about doing strength endurance work vs. spinning on the flats. 300W in the 53/11 elicits a much different neural muscular firing pattern than 300W in say a 39/25…

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I don’t have an answer, but just want to say that I feel exactly the same. I am sure that for me it’s not psychological - I don’t mind the slower speed, I just want to get my training done.

Ah, and I don’t think it’s about inertia either (at least for me), since I’m fine riding uphill…

It’s been a mystery for me for years and the power loss is quite considerable.

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Mental. For at least half of the year I battle strong headwinds for 20 miles before hitting a major river and looping back towards home. Took me about a year to mentally conquer and vanquish the headwind demons.

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Last Saturday I just experienced one of the strongest headwinds ever. I’m starting my base season, so it’s mostly Z2. The wind didn’t affect my plan, I pace these rides by HR. This segment was about 1hour into a 3hour ride. Despite putting 20+ watts more, I was 6 minutes slower than the week before. Totally Insane

here are the visuals:

Normal Ride the week before
image

Windy Ride
image

Mywindsock for example converts headwind speed into gradient feel. Quite clever.

The difference is although a headwind may be like riding gradients, your body position is still as it would be on the flat.

What I think that means is that you’re still in a weaker position, without all the muscles engaged as would be on a climb, but still having to deal with what feels like equivalent gravitational resistance.

And then there’s all the other small things added together which you can aptly describe as suck factor.

I live in a super windy coastal area. Best is to get into the drops I find and get stuck in. You can actually go quite quick into a headwind. Stay low and no flappy loose clothing!

It’s always suck though. Loads of riders love climbing, me too - you never hear anyone saying they love a good headwind.

But without it KOM sessions wouldn’t be nearly as fun or fast :dash:

I love a good headwind, and its not the first time I’ve posted that on this forum :wink:

Partly because a good headwind usually implies a good tailwind like this recent one:

:+1: and a nice long solo shot to the county line:

:wind_face: :wind_face: :wind_face: embrace the suck! :biking_man: :biking_man: :biking_man:

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There are psychological factors, but the primary reason riding into a headwind is harder for the same amount of power is body position. We naturally get lower and more aero with a more closed hip angle into a headwind. It is more difficult to maintain the same power in a lower position, and we see our HR naturally rise.

I guess in training this could be considered a psychological factor if we’re just training and speed doesn’t matter, but our brains are wired to create the conditions that produce the highest speed. We will naturally get lower, even if it means a lower power output or a higher effort level because it makes our speed increase.

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There’s always one!

I love it when it’s really strong, like 20mph and up so I can be a Strava lout.

Hate it when I’m doing these Z1 long slow POL rides though recently. Just feels so lame :man_facepalming:

Right now:

I’m riding later when its forecast to be 20mph gusting 30. However I’m going to maintain discipline and simply do my 2 hours of z2 and not try and grab a KOM or PR.

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As others have said, a lot of it is psychological…you are going slower, so it feels “harder”.

Here’s a test to show it…do a flat-out TT into the wind, maybe 10-20 minutes. Don’t look at your power or any data. All out max effort.

Recover for a bit, turn around and do the same effort back, this time with the tailwind. Same effort level…

Chances are your AP and NP will be VERY similar for both legs…I’ve done this numerous times and it always plays out the same.

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Yup.

Great article:

especially the part about tailwinds solo vs peloton!

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Riding into a headwind requires overcoming aero drag vs a climb requires overcoming gravity.

Power required to overcome aero drag varies with the cube of speed. Whereas power required to overcome gravity varies linearly with speed.

So the experience riding into a headwind is quite different than riding on a climb - and can be noticed in the feel of the pedal stroke.

When riding into a headwind, as you accelerate the pedal during the pedal stroke, the resistance gets exponentially harder, whereas it’s more linear when riding uphill.

End result is probably a mix of psychological difference, and different muscle groups bring engaged for different durations during the pedal stroke.

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It’s mental. I’ve cycled in certain areas in the world where a 100 miles of headwind during a ride isn’t unusual. Once you accept that you’ll be going slower, settle into a steady cadence, don’t obsess at speed or distance, and that you’ll be doing it for a few hours. It’s all good.

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Winner!

Riding into headwind disallows the repeated microaccelerations that would happen during normal pedaling at lower relative resistance from aero drag.

Muscle mechanics are strikingly specific. If you don’t experience headwinds often, or hard pedaling downhill at >>30mph, the fatigue of doing a slightly altered motor pattern (pedaling without small accelerations) is going to be substantially greater than normal pedaling rhythm with the small accelerations with each pedal stroke.

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Whats the point of going out then!
:slight_smile:

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The difference in resistance in relation to speed is a good point! It will also be more noticable when you’re accelarating (or when the wind is, ie when it’s gusty).

:man_shrugging: I do a lot of training into flat headwinds. And then go out and do long 1-3 hour climbs. With all due respect to DaveWh, its six of one, half-dozen the other. In other words, its far more a mental game than minor changes in muscle mechanics.

Part of it’s mental, but there are also different pedaling dynamics in play. The climbing analogy is valid and you can also look at trainers as a good point of comparison.

Get on a trainer with a big flywheel and then get on one without. On a trainer with a big heavy flywheel, you have a lot of inertia to help throughout the pedal stroke. With small flywheel effect, you have have a much different feel at the same wattage because you are required to apply force around more quadrants of the pedal stroke.

So, translate that to the road with a big tail wind and you can have a very smooth pedal stroke even if you are doing a disproportionate amount of the work in the sweet spot of your pedal zones. With a strong headwind (or steep hill) it is much harder to take “time off” during any point in the pedal stroke and it will be obvious if you are trying to do all the work in one quadrant.

Whether you can actually put out more wattage or not seems to be an individual thing. Some people seem to put out their best numbers climbing. Some do better on flat roads.

Personally, I find RPE to be higher at the same wattage climbing vs. flats (and headwind vs. tailwind). As far as my actual power curve, it’s not a dramatic difference, but it seems to have more departure as the duration gets longer. For example, I’m not going to see a big drop on a 5 minute effort (maybe none). Ask me to do a 2 hour sweet spot interval into the wind vs. at my back (or hill vs. flat) and you would see a measurable difference. I chalk this up to additional muscle fatigue because I don’t really train with high resistance/low inertia and I’m pushing muscles in a way I don’t in training. Said another way - I think I’m training myself to be stronger on steady high inertia efforts.

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I still think there is a difference between climbing and headwinds. I feel I can put out good power on a climb, but not into a headwind.

Differences in pedal mechanics might actually be a thing, and could be a reason why for some people the headwind powerloss is real, while others think it’s a myth. I also know a couple of people that struggle more than they should on climbs. Would be interesting to compare the “peanut” graphs of people that struggle with headwinds and those that do not.

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Agree it’s a mix, and it probably varies between riders.

For me, I have a relatively harder time with fast road riding vs riding into a strong headwind.

Fast road riding also has different mechanics vs a climb (and more different vs. climbing than riding into a headwind vs climbing IMO).

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