Against The Wind

Image: kids.britannica.com via Google

This by Lovely Bicycle! earlier today struck a chord. Not so much the bits about the English always talking about the weather (I share Kate Fox's views on that) and not the bits about rain not calling an end to play.

No, it's the bit about the wind.

So what's your safety threshold? How strong does the wind need to get to make you feel unsafe and at risk of getting hurt?


My personal limit for wind speed is about 20mph, provided it's quite steady in its force and fairly settled in its direction. I don't like strong gusts but this is in relative terms -- whether it's the odd 15mph gust in an other calm day or the 30mph shove when I'm bracing myself against a 20mph quarterly crosswind.

This evening, as we sit tucked up a warm, dry house, the wind is howling round the eaves. We are being buffeted by the same storm as Lovely Bicycle!, but thankfully only by its edges as it girds its loins to attack the already battered and soaked South West Coast.

Cycling safety thresholds are on my mind because tomorrow we're meant to be out on a group ride. We've made all our plans, yet tonight we're debating the wisdom of going.

The BBC, Met Office and the uk.weather.com website are all in agreement: it should be dry but cold tomorrow -- what otherwise I'd deem perfect winter cycling weather.

However, the key feature of the day will be wind. Wind with a capital W, with speeds of 20-25mph during the day and "occasional gusts over 40mph".

uk.weather.com's outlook for Harpenden tomorrow

If it were me organising tomorrow's ride, I'd probably be contacting everybody tonight to cancel. Adam, a much more experienced ride leader, is a bit more bullish but admits he'd be considering pulling the plug on it. He plans a quick trip down the hill to B&Q first thing in the morning and I expect he'll judge from that whether a longer ride seems sensible! It'll be up to the ride leader to decide whether the ride will go ahead at all. She's very experienced and I trust her judgment in taking the right decision for the safety of the group.

But I guess we feel some 'investment' in this ride. The leader is bringing a group of Londoners up here by train to show them the delights of cycling in our Bedfordshire countryside. The route is all on our stamping grounds and we've given her some feedback on it.  I feel somehow that if the ride goes ahead but we don't go, we'll be 'bad hosts'.

Tomorrow will bring what it brings....