The Perpetual Headwind: A Not-So Scientific Explanation

Headwind? I say vacuum.

Attn: Scientific Research Department at The Best Bike Blog Ever

Upon my recent excursions on the road I am again left to ponder the physics of "The Perpetual Head Wind."  You leave in a head wind. Turn every direction into a headwind and when you are officially bonked & toasted like a forgotten marshmallow over a campfire you turn for home into a small gust that feels like a revisit of Hurricane Ike.

It seems like every cyclist has experienced a ride like this. I humbly apologize if I have missed this post. If not, I would love to hear your thoughts on the topic. :o)

White Bar Tape Forever,

JH (via The Best Bike Blog Ever on Facebook)

Artist Rendering: Perpetual Headwind in Ohio River Valley

Dear JH,

We were among the church congregation at the Sisters of the Merciless Wind this past Sunday in Cincinnati.  Cincinnati is a very unfortunate place to ride when it’s windy.  There are four major river valleys in the area: The Great Miami, The Little Miami, The Licking and of course The Ohio River.  Route 8 which winds its way along the Ohio River is a perfect example of the phenomenon known as The Perpetual Headwind.  You’re in a headwind going west, east, uphill and then, expecting to be able to coast, you’re demoralized by the diabolical downhill headwind. 

The scientists at The Best Bike Blog Ever’s Scientific Research Department, who coincidently didn’t make the cut at Consumer Reports, have come up with an explanation for The Perpetual Headwind.  They think it has everything to do with Dyson Vacuum Cleaner’s patented cyclone technology, or something as freaky as an Englishman who spends too much time with vacuum cleaners. 

It's Science Dammit!

To help explain the theory, our idiots created a mock Ohio River Valley.  They took 2 patented wind wafers and meticulously adhered them to a thermoplastic flat surface.  You can do this at home or in your office with two Post-It-Notes and a CD jewel case.  Picture the post it notes as the ridges of the Ohio Valley and the CD jewel case as the river.  If you blow a westerly wind down the center, what do you think will happen to the ridgelines? 

They’ll blow to the outside of course!  No…no they don’t.  They blow inwards.  How can that be?

Sort of Freaky Isn't It?

You see, when wind blows down a valley, it creates a Dyson Vacuum effect.  The vacuum draws wind from around the other side of the ridges to fill the void in the valley.  What you think is a westerly wind on Route 8, turns into a headwind no matter which way you turn.  Ladies and Gentlemen, the Best Bike Blog Ever official puts the mystery of “The Perpetual Head Wind” to bed.  Good night.

In Heaven There Is No Clipless Pedals

…or spandex cycling shorts for that matter. I just returned from a week in Whistler, BC the home of the Nordic events of the 2010 Winter Olympics based in Vancouver. I have the Quatchi souvenir Olympic lunch box to prove it. We and maybe three other people were the only cyclists without platform pedals, baggy shorts and more suspension on our rental car than our bikes.

While expensive, Whistler is Heaven, not only in the sense of gorgeous freshwater mountain lakes surrounded by lush glaciated peaks fed by a network of great bike trails and paths, but also in the sense of pretty much any sport that that has ever graced the cover of Outside Magazine you can do in Whistler. Hiking, mountain climbing, bouldering, zip lining, eco-touring, kayaking, bungee jumping, canoeing, sky-gliding, horseback riding, ATVing, or skiing, you name it and you can do it in Whistler. While Breckenridge and Park City continue to draw more summer vacationers each time I visit, they are still only a notch above ghost town when compared to Whistler. The only difference between having a beer at the base of Whistler Mountain in September and January is the temperature and those coming down the hill in September have big bombing downhill bikes rather than ski’s and snowboards. The place was packed with people and bikes! However, I have a love-hate relationship with cycling in Whistler.

We love taking summer vacations to ski-areas more or less for the great cycling and off-peak rates. Whistler is a bit different than say a Breckenridge or a Park City. Whistler, at about 2100 feet above sea level, doesn’t have the altitude to make a fit person get a head rush climbing the stairs to the post office. If you want to travel from a low lying city like Cincinnati and go out for a five hour hike or ride or paddle in the mountains the minute you get off the plane, Whistler is the place no Sherpa or acclimatizing necessary. My big problem with Whistler is the mountain biking.

Yes. I have an issue with mountain biking in Whistler.

The issue is that the trails in Whistler are marked with easy, intermediate and expert signs when they should be marked with cartoon pictures of testicles: one small nut for easy and three huge ones for expert. I’m not talking about the downhill mountain bike park. When you put your bike up on a ski lift and are surrounded by people with full face helmets, body armor, and enough suspension to make a Hummer jealous, you know what you’re getting yourself into and you better have a big nut sack. Believe me, there were plenty of dudes wearing casts walking, hobbling or wheeling their chairs through Whistler Village to prove it. I’m talking about Whistler’s general single track trails around town, what you might call cross country trails. The Whistler Valley trail maps may try to deceive you with a variety of expert, intermediate (sign above says it all) and easy trails. There are really only two types of unpaved trails in Whistler: awkward rooty and rocky with varying degrees of drop offs or wood structures or silky smooth crushed gravel easy trails and fire roads.

Durango, Breckenridge, Park City, Pisgah, Tsali, you name it they’re all packed with what I’d call great cross country mountain bike trails. Trails that usually start out with a nice long climb and level out on some sort of ridgeline trail that traverses the mountain side. When I laid the Whistler map across the coffee table, I eyed the Intermediate (blue) Rainbow Sproat trail and a drip of drool plopped on the map. It appeared as I described above. However detailed, topo maps don’t show endless rock gardens, drop offs and the density of 4 inch tree roots per mile. While the double/single track climb was fine, when I got to the actual Rainbow Sproat Trail, it was an unrelenting exercise at maneuvering through the obstacles: rocks and roots and surprise drops. Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy the challenge. I cleaned most of it on a sweet XT equipped rented Rocky Mountain Element from Summit Bikes. Even though the switchbacks were fun and the scenic payoff at Rainbow Falls was breathtaking, I really didn’t enjoy the riding itself.

I have daydreams about the Peaks Trail in Breckenridge and the Mid-Mountain Trail in Park City. Just like Whistler, the climbs are tough and so are the various drops, rocks and roots. Unlike Whistler, the technical sections of other mountain town trails are broken up between long stretches of flowing single track. Single track that makes you say woo-hoo as you whiz through hours and miles of forests and meadows. Whistler single track is all tough and technical. By the time I rode the intermediate ranked Rainbow Sproat, Cut Yer Bars, the tight single track at Long Lake Park and watching my wife wreck on a trail called Blueberry…I didn’t dare tackle any expert trails (photo of Comfotably Numb trail junction in Long Lake Park) without a bigger bike and more protective gear.

Whistler trails, more specifically the intermediate and expert ones, all require expert technical ability. The only discernable difference I could see between expert and intermediate trails was the size of the dropoffs or how high the wooden bridges were. Twenty meters into any intermediate trail and I soon realized why so many people were wearing body armor and baggy shorts, had platform pedals and their saddle lowered on trails outside of the ski lift area. That’s cool, if you know what you’re getting yourself into. So, now you know what you’re getting yourself into. There's no middle ground in Whistler. It's body armor or basically bike path.

Till I vacationed in Whistler, I never saw the need for more than 100mm of front suspension or to lower my saddle or wear body armor or to go with platform pedals. Although from time to time I’d prefer a full suspension XC bike, I’d take my Niner Air 9 hard tail to Breckenridge, Park City, Durango, Moab, Pisgah, Tsali or dark West Virginia single track in a heart beat. My Niner in Whistler would be like bringing a knife to a gunfight.

Whistler made me realize my favorite mountain biking combines the free flowing beauty of Whistler’s “easy” trails with the occasional challenge of Whistlers rocks, roots and drop-offs. It's just that In Whistler, you can't have both at the same time.

The Finest Balls Available And Another Thing About Zipp Carbon Wheels

“If you upgrade…know that you'll be getting Grade 2 balls, the finest available…,” well okay, and that’s according to Zipp Wheel’s website.  Apparently I do not have the finest balls available on the Zipp 404 Clydesdale Tubulars I won at the OVCX raffle last year.  We’re talking bearings here.  According to Zipp, Grade 2 ceramic balls are the finest available, but we all know it’s not about the balls.  Or, was that the bike?  The thing is most people buy carbon wheels because they are lighter, more aerodynamic and if they have grade 2 balls, carbon wheels roll faster than other wheels.  I have never heard anyone say they bought Zipps because they make you faster going downhill.  They should. 

You know how many cyclists I’ve run into that are afraid to let it loose on a descent and carve it up?  I know one woman, a very seasoned triathlete who used to come to nearly a dead stop at the top of hills afraid of the descent.  Zipp’s missing out on a great advertising angle here.  Going downhill is arguably the most fun aspect of cycling.  You don’t have to pedal.  You can go over 50mph on a good descent.  Imagine if instead of getting scared going around a downhill corner at say 45mph, you wouldn’t get concerned till you were going over 50 or more.  Aside from the cost and durability issues, I’m really surprised that I haven’t seen downhill mountain bikers run a deep carbon wheel.  The experience I’ve had so far is more than a subtle difference.  On a mountain bike, deep carbon hoops would definitely keep you from overcooking a corner and taking a trip through the trees.

On my first test ride, I bombed down Shawnee Run in Cincinnati’s hoidy toidy Indian Hill neighborhood, where Proctor and Gamble descendents live in horse-fence harmony with Cincinnati’s native celebrities like Peter Framton.  With Kyserium SSC SL’s, I usually end up scrubbing a little speed off on the last two turns to avoid getting too close to the thick painted shoulder line which can get slippery on this usually shaded and damp hill.  On the Zipp 404 Clydesdale tubulars, I never hit the brakes and continued pedaling till I spun out my 53x12 on the run in to the stop sign at the bottom.  Like a figure skater carving a turn on one skate, a really manly figure skater, it was like the wheels wanted to hold their space in the universe.  The control was amazing.  I was laughing at how ridiculously fast I was going and that I didn’t get scared at eye watering speed.

I’m sure most of the incredible stability at speed is due to the shape and height of the carbon faring and the wider hub.  I went to Zipp’s website for further explanation.  Zipp says, “Because the real world includes rough pavement, potholes and corners, we've designed our exclusive VCLC technology to reduce fatigue and maximize bike handling control for every rider and every road surface.”  Then it got a little more gobbley gookish, “The key is a visco-elastic material sandwiched between layers of rigid carbon laminate in the rim.”  Okay, whatever you say.  It went on, “When the wheel receives an impact from the road, much of the shock is absorbed by the VCLC system, delivering a 10% reduction in vibration.  That means that your wheel stays glued to the pavement when cornering and transmits less vibration into your body, reducing fatigue and keeping you fresh to carry your top speed all the way to the finish.”  Certainly someone was getting paid to fill up the large space around the pretty wheel picture.

They could’ve just said something like, “Zipp.  You Wont Crap Your Chamois On Wicked Fast Bumpy Downhill Corners… now with the finest balls available.”

And, just in case you're wondering, I have found the cyclist with the finest balls.  Yikes!