I thought Michigan was windy until I moved to Tucson in 1983. I thought Tucson was windy until I moved to Texas in 1988. Yesterday, having taken the previous week off because of cold weather, I did a training ride with my friends Phil, Randy, and Bryce in Granbury. We started late (11:00), since nobody had to get home early. It was already windy as we rode away from our cars. We knew we would suffer mightily, and we did.
The course (laid out by Randy, who lives in Granbury) is hilly. It's hard enough with no wind, so you can imagine how hard it was with gale-force wind. I saw "7.5" on my speedometer while climbing a hill into the wind. Late in the ride, our bikes were slanted because of a vicious crosswind. I swear that my rear wheel came off the ground at one point, and I almost lost control a couple of times when my handlebars were yanked to the side by the wind. It was almost funny to be tossed around like this. It reminds you that we are but passengers on nature's carousel.
What goes up must come down, so there were times when we had a tailwind, and it was gloriously fun. I coasted at over 30 miles per hour at one point. I coasted up a hill at 25 miles per hour. I kid you not. The original plan was to ride 50 miles, but late in the ride, when everyone was fried from the sun and wind, we decided to cut it short. Randy said it would be about 40 miles. He lied! It came out to 48.1. My average speed was 15.20 miles per hour. (My maximum was 41.6.) Two weeks earlier, on an easier course, Phil, Randy, and I averaged 15.22 miles per hour for 53.1 miles. It may appear that we haven't improved, but given the stiff wind and the many hills, we did much better. The key is to get a bit stronger on each ride. All of us plan to do the 100-mile course at Hotter 'n Hell this year (in late August).
I just checked the official weather statistics for DFW Airport. The high temperature yesterday was 74º. The average wind speed was 21.5 miles per hour. I count it as windy if it's 10 miles per hour or higher. The maximum wind speed was 38 miles per hour. As I told my home boys, if it doesn't kill us, it will make us stronger.
By the way, the countryside was gorgeous. The images in this post (click to enlarge) were made during the ride, with my BlackBerry. (Yes, I take my cellphone on my rides. I'm leashed!) The farm house in the first image (that's Phil in the foreground) is more than 100 years old, according to the elderly man who lives there. He told me during our roadside chat that the silo-like structure was made for water storage. The shed in the second image used to be a house! I made the third image at a Valero station in Bluff Dale, where we stopped for refreshments.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 