Welcome to myWindsock

There is so much data, sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming! So let’s break things down a little and get you started.

To add myWindsock as an app for your phone, click here.

What we’re all interested in… Lets look at a forecast!

Here’s an example forecast Friday 12th November 2021 -10am. Find out how to load a route into myWindsock here.

The basics, red indicates headwind and light blue a tailwind and the colours in between, crosswind. The little, coloured arrows indicate direction of wind.

Finding Key Moments

The Course Navigator highlights areas of interest on the course, including headwind, climbs, and Strava segments. Also found in the Navigator menus are any intervals you have created.

Clicking on an item in the Navigator menu, highlights, creates summary data and zooms charts into the selected course region.
Here I have selected Climb 2 on the route.

Setting up your Virtual Rider

The Virtual Rider, rides the course for you. You simply specify what the parameters are that the VR adheres to.

If you already know a rough CdA from previous races you can enter it in the aerodynamics section. If not, you can find out more info here.

Unit Preferences

If you’d rather have miles rather than kilometers or perhaps Farenheit instead of Celsius. It’s easy to make this change from your account page.

Go to the Account Page and change unit settings.

Unit options

Speed

  • KM/H (Kilometers per hour)
  • MPH(Miles per hour)

Wind Speed

  • M/S (Metres per second)
  • MPH (Miles per hour)
  • KM/H (Kilometers per hour)

Distance

  • Km (Kilometres)
  • Miles

Temperature

  • Celsius
  • Farenheit

Elevation

  • Metres
  • Feet

Go to the Account Page and change unit settings.

Creating a Ride Plan

The most powerful chart… ever!

The Last Change Delta sounds dull but it really unlocks alot of the analysis. We’ll demo this chart with two ‘go to’ experiments.

Exp 1. Biggest bang per Watt

First of all let’s see what impact reducing power by a relatively small amount, 5 Watts, has on our time. This experiment works by increasing power too. Only make a small change for best results.

Our Virtual Rider lost 29 Seconds, but it won’t be lost evenly across the course. What we really need to know is where on the course we lost the most time. If we know that, we can ensure we prioritise our power in those places. Additionally, we may find some free rest time… handy hey!

So lets look at the Last Change Delta Chart…

For the first 12km we lose 15 seconds. Then in the final 6km, half the distance, we lose almost the same time. We can see in the final part of the ride, the red line becomes a lot steeper, meaning that time is lost at a much higher rate. From this we can take that putting out 5 Watts less has a bigger impact. So we should prioritise power in these areas.

We can also see there are a few sections that plateau, the line becomes almost flat, meaning that the decrease in power output doesn’t actually have a massive effect. So if you need a place where you can ease off the power and recharge your batteries, this is where you can do this without a major impact on your overall time!

Exp 2. Where aero matters most

Let’s repeat with a similar test. This time we will discover where a positive change in aerodynamics will have the greatest impact. CdA is your efficiency at moving through the air. Learn more about it here.

This time we’ve reduced the Virtual Rider’s CdA by 0.005.

A lower CdA means we are more aerodynamic. By reducing our CdA 0.005, we will be faster as we are more aero. As this is a positive change we get a green line indicating the Virtual Rider is ahead of the previous set up.

The dotted line shows the average change in time. Where the green line starts lowering at a steeper gradient than the dotted line, this means we are going quicker than the average time gain, so we should preference these points for aero.

Where the green line plateaus out, or starts levelling out at a lower gradient than the dotted line, it means we are gaining time at a lower than average rate. In these areas, we could relax our position a little in preference for power production.

Putting our findings together with Intervals

Now that we’ve made some observations, let’s form a plan. Creating an Interval breaks the Virtual Rider from it’s profile settings for the selected period. Find out how to Create Intervals here.

I like to create two identical Virtual Riders, a ‘Baseline’ Virtual Rider and a ‘Test’ Virtual Rider. The ‘Test’ rider will have intervals applied to it, we can then view the impact of our intervals vs the baseline.

We’ll add an interval to one of the climbs. Looking at our Last Change Delta above, this is where deviating from the overall plan will have the greatest impact on your time.

Having the ‘Test’ Virtual Rider selected. Check the boxes you want to change. Importantly, ensure ‘Current Profile’ is selected, this will attach the interval to the ‘Test’ Virtual Rider. I’ve tweaked our numbers like the above tests.

Remember you can find the Intervals you have created in the Navigator menu in the top bar.

Now this interval has been applied you can see the time gained by this change in the LCD chart, a total of 4 seconds. We can see the interval in the lime green box at the start, by climb 1. We can easily edit this interval by selecting the edit button at the side or in the navigator box at the top of the screen.

Now that we’ve had a look at how to experiment with some of the data, lets have a look at some visualisation techniques to help prepare for the days conditions.

Wind impact

For us, the best way to manage the headwinds, is to visualise it as we would a hill. Here, we show how the wind can change our perception of a flat or inclined surface.

This is the ‘Feels Like’ Elevation profile. The grey area is the actual elevation. The coloured line, is the ‘Feels Like’ Elevation profile. If we were to translate the wind’s impact into it’s equivalent elevation gain, this is what the course would look like. The red areas highlight the course feeling significantly harder than the terrain would look on paper.

See how the wind will reduce the slope of the actual elevation. However, the flat middle section would feel a little up hill.

Also from the chart menu, check out the Feels Like Gradient chart.

There is more about Feels Like Elevation here.