Using myWindsock to plan a ride

You can tell it’s November, every marketing email in my inbox is telling me to buy this season’s latest raincoat which is finally going to be the one that actually works but then, after 3 hours of a storm following you around you’re wet, the contents of your pockets are wet and your feet are soaked and freezing. Imagine if there was a way of being a little smarter than this though. There are a couple of approaches for this readily available without our help.

The weather radar guy 

I have a couple of mates like this, they have every weather radar app available (except us for some reason) downloaded onto their phone. They have a constant image in their head aggregating the latest satellite imagery and mentally overlaying the route they have planned out trying to figure out how wet they’re going to get, where it might rain and how to avoid it. Sometimes, this person will even look up a wind map on top of this!

The ‘no such thing as bad weather guy’

“There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing choices”. This is not true. There is such a thing as bad weather and these people are kidding themselves. This person never checks the weather, has a raincoat on every ride and was probably a member of the Scouts. They are often found making smug comments when it does rain unexpectedly as they’re always prepared.

The myWindsock guy

Everyone knows an optimiser. The person that tends to get things right, whenever they plan a route it’s always a tailwind home. They will plan to leave at 3:07pm as the rain stops at 3:06pm and there’s still time for an hour provided the traffic lights are on your side on the way back to town as they will be. You don’t know how they do it, but they seem to get everything right, well let us show you how they’re doing it…

  • They sign up to myWindsock.
  • They head into myWindsock and hit “add to planner”
Add your route to planner. Hit ok, add to planner, Strava (or GPX upload) and then “Routes”. Once it’s in, set the date and time your ride is planned for.
  • They check our collection of charts and information.
The quick metrics of the weather are available here. Gives you the probability of rain, of course myWindsock is subject to the same uncertainties of every weather forecast but this gives you a picture of what’s coming.
The weather overview plot is what you get when you hit “View how the weather evolves” and can be found in our charts reserved for myWindsock premium members. This is the chart that helps us avoid those random dips in temperature and the heavens opening at the end of a ride.
  • They have a perfect ride – armed with all of this information the optimisers go ahead and ride round dodging rain showers and headwinds like they have a sixth sense.

myWindsock has developed a reputation amongst time trial specialists and triathletes for being a performance aid. This is true, we help people pace and use the weather to get the most out of themselves but winter is where myWindsock truly comes into its own. To keep dry this winter – sign up here.