DUTCH MOUNTAINS: HEAD WIND

87 km | 4 h 00 m | 21.7 avg km/h | 2.624 kcal | 155 avg bpm

Look at the flag on the picture and you see that today was a challenging day: 40 kms/h head and cross wind made perfect strength training. If felt like climbing 8% hills most of the time, with a heart rate of 178/180 to keep a speed of 15 km/h. Hard day on the saddle but very rewarding.

Dá uma olhada na bandeira na foto e você vai ver como o dia foi duro: ventos de 40 kms/h contra e lateral fez um treino de força perfeito hoje. A sensação era de estar subindo ladeiras de 8% na maioria do tempo, com o ritmo cardíaco de 178/180 só para manter 15 km/h. Muito bom.

When I left home the wind was on my back and I was pushing 37 kms/h even not pedaling that hard. Based on my ride plan, I knew immediately I would get mostly cross winds and the last 40 kms I would be facing headwind. I thought for a second to change the plan but decided to stick to it and make it a long interval training.
I was meeting a colleague at a point we were suppose to turn left. As I got there earlier than him, I need to wait for a second. To see the wind power, I stop pedaling on the flat road and my speed went down to 8 km/h when the wind slowed down. And it went up to 14.7 km/h with the gusts of wind, with no pedaling involved. Impressive.
From there we went direction Weesp and we got lots of cross wind and some tail wind. In the cross wind, the feeling was that we were leaning on a angle to keep the bike from moving sideways. In the tail wind I pushed up to 49 km/h for some time. Fun stuff.

From Weesp all the way to Hilversum the headwind was so strong that my speed went all the way down to 14 km/h. There were 3 or 5 stretches of 4 kms against the wind. It was hard work and at one point in a light incline my heart rate went up to 184 bpm to keep a 12 km/h speed. Good that I had company as to do this type of ride alone would be really boring.
From Hilversum to home the headwind picked up so much that it felt like climbing the Cold du Tourmalet. At one point, I was pushing 27 km/h when I was protected from the wind by a building. Once I turn the corner the wind was so strong that I went down to 14 km/h in a split of a second. I almost crashed!
All in all a very good training session. Next weekend we will have the first team ride and I hope the wind has calmed down as it would be very dangerous to ride in a big group like that. Above all, good result as I’m not managing to do any training during the week…