30mph winds with 50mph gusts

The wind was blowing pretty hard last night. I got up this morning and turned on the TV to find out “Wind advisory remains in effect from 6 am to 6 PM CST”. It was only 8AM and I could hear the wind outside blowing hard.

I really wanted to ride out to the Wave café for the ST.N coffee meet. This might be the last coffee meet of the season but I hate the wind just a bit more than I hate the rain.

See, with rain, you still have a lot of control. You just need to adjust to the wet pavement. You accelerate slower and brake slower, and it’s no so bad.

But for me the wind is harder to adjust to, especially gusting wind. An unexpected gust of wind can push you out of your lane or even off the road. And persistent winds tire you out very quickly as you wrestle with the bike. I’ve experienced gust up to 35MPH, but today the wind was gusting up to 50MPH.

I made the right decision to stay home. At 10AM my friend Rick called. He said he didn’t check the weather and rode out to the coffee meet. The wind blew him off the road, he fought to keep the bike straight and there was debris flying all around. He was getting ready to head back home before the winds got stronger.