In case you haven’t noticed, this has been the “year of the wind” in the Wenatchee Valley! A great year for cyclists of all abilities to feel first hand the power of the most important factor in successfully riding a bike! This is often unpleasant when riding west into our prevailing wind, but it makes you feel like superman when you turn around to come home. So, what is going on here, and why is it so important? Well, a bicycle is an incredibly efficient means of forward travel because the rolling resistance is close to nil on a smooth, flat road. However, as your speed increases, you have to push air out of the way to move forward, and the resistance increases almost exponentially above 20mph. This means that unless you are going up a hill, your ability to ride against the wind is the main factor determining how fast you go. If you are riding alone, then you truly are at the mercy of the wind, and most of us consider it more unpleasant than climbing a hill when it is  blowing in your face. However, if you can ride behind another rider, the resistance drops incredibly! In fact at 20 mph, you will get about a 20% savings of energy output by drafting, and as you go faster, the savings will increase dramatically. Understanding this is the key to understanding the sport of cycling! We have all heard of “aero”-this, and “aero”-that, but all the aero gizmos in the world pale in comparison to simply having another rider breaking the wind for you. And… if you have three or more taking turns at this, you can form what is called a “pace line” so that the work is shared, and no one rider ever rides into the wind for more than a few seconds at a time.  When a small group is well organized at this, the average speed goes up remarkably, yet the energy expenditure stays reasonably controlled for each individual. They work for their 30 seconds at the front, and then get to rest as they drop to the end of the line and work their way up. So- there you have it! Now you know one of the main reasons that the “team” is so important in this sport, and you have learned the most common “play”- it is called the  ”pace line”.

But don’t take my word for this- if you are riding a bike these days, try this out for yourself! The most important thing is to ride with riders that you can trust not to be “squirrely”, and agree on a steady pace (a speedometer helps for this). As you are riding, drop into single file and start concentrating on the rear wheel of the person in front of you.  Try to stay within a bike length of that wheel (the closer the better), and keep a smooth rhythm. You will immediately notice that the riding is easier even though your speed stays the same. You should realize that this requires concentration (no cell phones!), and you should know that if the wheels bump into each other, the rider in the rear is the one that crashes! Your pay-off will be miles of road covered with less work! Most pace lines will change the lead every 30 seconds or so, and on a highway it is best to “peel-off” to the right as the line passes you on the left in order to avoid peeling into traffic.

Once you have experienced the magic of a well working pace line, you will understand how races like the Tour de France are won and lost! In one of the tours that Lance Armstrong dominated, it was estimated that outside of his individual time trials, he only “faced the wind” for 21 miles in a race that was over 2000 miles in length! On TV, we never see the miles and miles that a team leader or a “protected rider” covers in the shadow of his teammates, but the energy he saves this way can make or break him when crunch time comes.  In the Tour de France this year, we watched the incredible work of the CSC team on the key day of big climbs in the alps.  Some of the guys who were “stars” in their own right, were pulling hard to protect their three climbers from the wind- all the way to the last climb, with no thought of finishing with a good result themselves. Their job was to position the teams’ three top guys near the front of the pack for the final climb, and see who had the “good legs” on the famous “Alpe de Huez”. Carlos Sastre had been waiting for 10 years to be in this position  and after riding behind his teammates for over 5 hours that day, he was fresh enough to leave the others at the bottom of the climb. The rest is history- he went on to win the 2008 Tour de France. The key was literally the ability of his team to “break wind” for him on the way to Paris, and in this endeavor all the members are important. Trying to win a bike race without a team, would be like sending the center and the quarterback out to make yardage against the defense in football. That is one of the reasons that the “winnings” are always split evenly among the team in the sport of cycling!

More to come: the quirky nature of echelons and how to beat the wind in the Wenatchee Valley.