Against the Wind

© Ken Bingenheimer / RumBum.com

A windy highway can be your friend, or your foe; it just depends on the day and the way the wind's blowing.

The sudden blast hits you, throwing you and the bike across the lane, perilously close to the edge of the pavement. You struggle to control the bike and curse the wind, moving back across the lane so the next blast won't blow you completely off. Some days it almost seems like riding a motorcycle is more trouble than it's worth.

Windy days can be like that. It's not much of an issue if the wind is hitting you head on, or pushing you along from behind, but a fierce cross-wind can be hellacious. You'll feel it in a car, but with more than a ton of mass you're a lot more stable in the lane. On a motorcycle, with a total weight of perhaps 800 pounds, a powerful gust can send you clear across the lane and off the road. Or even worse, across the lane and into oncoming traffic. Yikes!

Counter-intuitively, less is more in this situation. I'll explain that in a moment.

My first encounter with this hazard came soon after I bought my first motorcycle, my 1980 Honda CB750 Custom. I had been up to Lyons, north of Boulder, to visit a friend and was headed home now on CO 93. CO 93 is known for being a road where the wind frequently whips down from the foothills, and in icy conditions in winter it is common for cars to end up in the ditch.

I was still learning to ride my bike. I was nowhere near as much at home on it as I am now and my experience was essentially zilch. I was headed south and the wind was coming from the west so those gusts blasted me and repeatedly threatened to send me into oncoming traffic. I got home safely but that has to have been one of the most miserable rides of my life.

The Wind As Cushion

My next significant encounter with wind came a couple years later when the OFMC was heading east out of Laughlin, NV, spending the day crossing Arizona and part of New Mexico on the interstate. This was a straight shot eastward and the wind was howling straight down from the north. At least on the interstate there was a broad shoulder and if you stayed in the right-hand lane you weren't going to get blown into traffic.

The wind was not gusty that day, it was a constant blow. This meant we rode leaned to our left to compensate for the wind, and after awhile I even came to feel that I was reclining on the wind just as if it was a wall that I was leaning on for support.

The only problem was when something momentarily blocked the wind, like when a semi would pass on the left. Generally, on a motorcycle, if you lean to the left your bike will go left. As the semi would block the wind, the bikes would suddenly veer left and we would have to straighten them up quickly to avoid disaster. Then as the truck passed the blast would hit us again and we'd have to lean again. The same thing happened when we'd go into a cut in the hill where highway construction had lowered the road across a hill and used that dirt as fill to raise the road in the dip between that hill and the next one. At least these were situations you could anticipate, which was a heck of a lot better than gusty wind.

Letting Go

Most any rider will tell you that in strong winds the tendency is to hang on to both hand-grips as if your life depended on it, which in fact you feel it does. But heading east onto the plains out of Denver a few months ago, on another of these days of howling wind, I had an epiphany.

There was a mostly steady wind blowing hard from the south as I headed east, and I was on a two-lane road. I stayed as close to the right as I could but occasional powerful gusts would send me toward the center line. I was thankful that there wasn't much traffic in either direction.

As usual, I had a death grip on the bars and I was struggling to ensure the bike went where I wanted it to go. Maybe I needed to scratch my nose-I don't remember what it was. I let go with my left hand momentarily and lo and behold, steering the bike was suddenly much, much easier. I grabbed the grip again and struggled again, then tentatively let go of the grip, and again the struggle eased.

The best I can figure is that with both hands on the grips, even though you're only conscious of applying pressure on the windward side, that leeward hand is still relaying steering input to the bike that counteracts the windward hand. That's why it's so hard to steer, you're fighting yourself. Let go with the leeward hand and all your steering input goes where you want it to go.

Gosh, it only took me 20-some years to figure this out, but that's good. I have friends who've ridden longer than I have who hadn't figured it out. Now I'm spreading the word.