Ben Norbury is four times Manchester & District Middle Distance and Best All Rounder Time Trial Champion from 2016-2019. During this time he developed software to eliminate uncertainty of the weather conditions out of his pre-race preparation.
To mark the first British Open time trial of the 2023 season, we were happy to help Cycling Time Trials, the British governing body for time trials, with a bit of data.
To find out the difference between Winter and Summer, we ran a simulation for every day of 2022. That’s 365 times around the Ely & District course! We ran the myWindsock simulations at 300 Watts, 80kg, 0.200 CdA. Here’s what we found.
You can see from the above graph the day to day the variability of times for the BS19 course due to the weather. Time range from 55 minutes in Winter Months to 53 minutes in the Summer.
Another thing to note is the seasonal day to day variability, that is the difference between two days of the same week or month. In the Winter we can see this is around 60 seconds, however times are a little more consistent in the Summer at around 30 seconds. Good job myWindsock give’s you the tools to measure the impact of the Weather.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t a gift day. In fact it was around 1 second slower than Ed Laverack’s KOM day! We’ll call that one even. Air Speed is the speed of the airflow around the rider. We’ve shown the speed difference from ground speed here.
Overall power was 8 Watts higher, giving Tom a 24 second advatange. That’s a huge 6.6Watts/kg!
Next an assumption on System Weight. That is the weight of rider, bike and kit. Rider stats show Tom as 1 kg lighter. This finds Tom another 15 seconds.
Now the big one, Aero! Tom finds a massive 72 seconds. Reducing air resistance from 14.3% down to 10%. The aero Tom has here, is the equivalent to a very well tuned Time Trial Bike position. So we’d assume some assistance here.
How fast would your Sa Calobra time be?
You can find your own time on Sa Calobra, simply by loading the myWindsock forecast. Check out the Sa Calobra Strava Segment
Picking the best route has just become a little easier. New to the Activities & Routes menu, time estimates, headwind percentages, and Weather Impacts™ for each Strava Route and Segment.
Setting departure time
If you are not leaving for your bike ride immediately, you can set the departure time as desired.
How to view Strava Routes and Segments
It’s easy to view all of your Strava Routes and Segments on myWindsock. From the dashboard, go to “Activities & Routes”, select “Strava” to begin.
For GCN, we were asked to look at the 2.36s Winning Margin, between Andrew Feather and Tom Bell. Check the GCN tech show out. Below the video, we I’ll show you how you can do similar experiments.
How you can discover stats like these with myWindsock
A myWindsock Virtual Athlete, rides the course just like you. However, they ride at any power, any aero, at any weight and never get tired. Just like you, they have to battle the weather and terrain. Virtual Athletes collect insightful data as they ride, meaning we can give you an exceptional level of detail about your activities.
Once you have customised your Virtual Athlete, you can now make changes to see how that impacts the time. In this example we have increased the Virtual Athlete’s Power by a couple of Watts. Not only can we see how much time has been gained, we can also see where on the course the time was gained. Notice how this isn’t a linear line, time is gained at differing rates.
If you want to get super optimised, we can see where this extra power had the greatest impact on time. The Delta Variance shows this to us by colouring the line green. We’d prioritise these green sections when formulating a power plan.
Why not Predict what your National Hill Climb Time would have been, view forecast.
We’re excited to announce, you can now find myWindsock cycling weather on the VeloViewer Strava Segment pages. Discover the weather conditions for every Strava Segment QOM and KOM. We love the additional insights and challenges, VeloViewer add to Strava activities. Now with a splash of myWindsock in there, we love it even more!
About VeloViewer
VeloViewer connects to your Strava account and pulls across your activities, segments and routes to provide you with a whole new world of dashboards, charts, 3D graphics, filterable lists, leaderboards, motivational goals along with your up-to-date leaderboard positions on all of the segments you have covered (Strava subscription required for segment positions).
What you now see on VeloViewer
For every Strava Segment, you can view the wImpact (Weather Impact) and Headwind percentage. Discover these metrics for the Current Time, KOM, QOM and your own PR Effort. Want to find out more? click on the metric to load the full myWindsock weather analysis.
wImpact is paticularly insightful for Strava KOM and QOMs. Taking into account all the weather conditions, myWindsock provides a comparative metric for how favourable to conditions are. A positive number indicates additional power is required to achieve the sames speeds on a weatherless day. Minus numbers, indicate favourable conditions.
About the data
These metrics are powered by myWindsock cycling weather analysis. Data is calculated for the every point along the route, ensuring the most accurate and relevant weather data possible.
myWindsock’s mission, is to remove uncertainty from athletic endeavours. By removing uncertainty, we enable athletes to dream big and achieve their own greatness.
We’re delighted to announce, the talented statisticians behind the official Cycling Time Trials ranking system, Spindata, have incorporated the myWindsock Weather Impact ™ metric into their event pages. This is using the myWindsock Metrics API. The API enables third parties to add myWindsock course data to their websites and applications.
To improve pre race preparation, we have developed a few additional features for your forecasts. These features are Desktop and Tablet features.
Cue Sheet Markers
The Cue sheet will indicate which Cue Item is currently active based on your current Virtual Athlete’s location. Update your Virtual Athlete’s location by clicking on the map Windlines, hovering over the active chart, or by playing the activity.
Your Cue Sheet is now Interactive
Clicking on the Icon next to a Cue Item will highlight or zoom to the region on the forecast. Use this to view an interactive breakdown of the activity.
The Lands End to John O’Groats record holder, Christina Mackenzie is taking on another formidable test of endurance. On Friday 13th of May, she will be attempting to set the a new North Coast 500 record. The 500 mile route, around the Scottish Highlands, climbs a huge 10,000 metres. That elevation gain is more than an everesting attempt!
In prepartion for the event, Christina and her team have been monitoring the myWindsock forecast. RRA record breakers, are using myWindsock forecasts to help understand the demands of record attempts. Here are few things that have caught our eye.
Power and CdA numbers are for demonstration purposes and not that of the record attempt.
Wind gusts up to 33.6mph
It’ll be a very windy record attempt. The purple triangles indicate potentially hazardous crosswinds. This may impact equipment choices for these sections of the ride. The wind will affect overall speed. It is anticipated that Christina’s average air speed will be 1km/h higher than her ground speed.
18hrs of Headwind
Of the 18hrs of headwind we think the toughest section will be the 22nd Headwind of the attempt. This is 4hrs between Wick and Loch Fleet, happening from 7am, 26 hrs into the record attempt. The average forecast wind speed here is 12.5mph gusting to 23mph. Air Speed here will be on average 5kmh higher than her ground speed.
How will the ride feel
When we combine the wind with gradient we get a new perspective of road feel. We call this Feels Like Elevation. The red sections show how much greater the road feel has been overall due to the weather. After the summit of Bealach na Bà the areas of red begin to reduce indicating that the road feel has become easier, there is now assistance being provided by the wind.
In fact by 7am, 26hrs into the attempt, the weather will have been to Christina’s advantage. From this point however we see the Feels Like line begin to ascend and exceed that of the terrain. Eventually the weather will give an additional penalty of 434 metres Feels Like elevation gain.
Speed Expectations
Average speed can vary considerably during record attempts. Inevitably, when a rider sees average speeds are below what is required for the record, they can be anxious. The crucial thing is to have the data to support decision making. Have the data of rolling average speed throughout the record attempt, will give a far better indication as to whether a change of plan is required.
Where will aerodynamics play the biggest role?
With a quick experiment we can find exactly where Christina should be focusing on aerodynamics the most. We simply reduce her CdA by a small amount. Then, by viewing the Delta Variance Chart, we can see in Green the parts of the course her aerodynamics are most important.
We have no doubt Christina will be focused on aero throughout. However, inevitably on a 34 hour ride to be 100% locked into position is probably unrealistic. Therefore, the red sections offer some opportunity to stretch and relax, a little. Where as the Green sections indicate where it is very important to maximise aero.
Good luck Christina
We wish Christina and the team all the best of luck. If you would like to support Christina’s charity, you can donate to the Cruse Bereavement Scotland Charity through her Just Giving page.