gauvins

Curious to lean about options and use cases for portable anemometers. Ideally, something small, compatible with the Garmin ecosystem so it would capture data, in a way similar to what a tempe sensor does for temperature.

Obviously, I always ride into headwinds and would like to be able to prove my point

fooferdoggie 

you have a garmin you can use this app to get the wind and direction on it .its called windfield. you want to pay for it to get good refresh and to be able to sue a better source of weather info. it shows wind speed and direction with a arrow that always shows the direction as you move.

chaadster

I don’t know if they’re still available or if they actually report wind speed, but the Arofly power meters use relative wind speed to calculate power output. I think there’s one that is integrated into a computer head unit and another stand-alone unit. May be worth a look.

gauvins

Thanks for the pointer. Will try, but probably not what I am looking for (wind speed/direction changes over terrain).

gauvins

Similar to power pod. I'll keep this in mind as my power meter has stopped working reliably... still looking for a cheaper alternative, though.

fooferdoggie 

yes but also the direction your riding. so unless you want to stop and check nothing will really do the job.

pdlamb

Topography affects the wind you experience too much for me to put much faith in what the nearest weather station reports in most areas. For example, last week I was enjoying a calm day's riding until I came to a small north-south ridge (maybe 150 feet). On the other side, the wind went from less than 10 mph to a stiff, 25-30 mph SW headwind that had been blocked and funneled by the ridge.

One of the posters in the touring forum (IIRC it was one of the Johns, Nettles or Nelson?) has used a portable anemometer.

For the really nasty stuff you might ask motorists. One day in Wyoming was the worst sustained headwind I've ever experienced. I asked a pickup driver how bad it was, and he said it must have been 55 mph; that was how fast he'd been driving the other way with his windows down and he didn't have any breeze to cool him.

rumrunn6

I had one, it didn't have connectivity with anything, just a basic unit, but it worked great, but I lost it. I guess it was too small & portable!

fwiw, I always feel like I'm riding uphill ...

RChung

There are lots of inexpensive handheld anemometers (and some that are expensive), but your choices depend on your needs and what you're going to do with the data. I use a Kestrel 5100 but it's not really handlebar mountable.

There are some solid state anemometers that might work. The original Alphamantis Aerostick used a differential pressure sensor but there are other types. Perhaps you could cobble something together from solid state variometer circuits.

I wonder whether something like this would work: https://calypsoinstruments.com/shop/...wind-meter-221

noglider 

You're a big guy, right? I'm skinny and light. I always feel like I'm riding upwind. And I usually am.

MinnMan

Just curious, but how would these instruments couple to your ground velocity to give you air velocity? Or would they just give you air velocity relative to your bike as a reference frame, and you'd have to manually subtract your gps ground speed to give you wind speed?

RChung

The latter, though if you look at the power equation, we don't usually care about the actual wind speed, we care about the airspeed (and sometimes yaw angle). It's pretty much the same in flying an airplane.

MinnMan

Thanks.

I know that it's air speed rather than wind speed that affects the power required. But generally when we are thinking, say, "maintaining an 18 mph average was hard against that head wind", or "of course I got a PR on that segment, there was an xx mph tailwind", it's the wind speed that we want to discuss.