Cycling in wind: the full guide to headwinds, crosswinds and tailwinds

The short version: how does wind affect cycling?

Cycling in wind comes down to how much air you have to push through, and air is already most of what you fight on a flat road. At 25 km/h (15.5 mph), air resistance is about 70% of the effort for a typical road rider in our model. The rest is mostly tyres on tarmac.

Three things decide how a windy ride goes:

• The angle. Wind along your road slows or speeds you. Wind across it mostly tests your handling.
• The gusts. The peaks, not the average, decide whether a ride is safe.
• The timing. Wind changes through the day, so the forecast for the hour you reach each stretch is the one that counts.

Each section below summarises one of our detailed guides and links to it.

How much time does a headwind cost you?

More than most riders expect, and more than a tailwind gives back. At the effort that gives 25 km/h (15.5 mph) in still air, a 20 km/h (12 mph) headwind slows you to 15 km/h (9.3 mph) and turns a four-hour 100 km (62-mile) ride into 6 hours 40 minutes.

The reason is the square law. Into that headwind the air meets you at 45 km/h (28 mph), and drag rises with the square of air speed, so it pushes back about 3.2 times as hard. Holding 25 km/h (15.5 mph) anyway takes about 248 W instead of 97 W, two and a half times the effort.

The tailwind never repays it, because you spend far longer in the headwind: the worked example at the end shows the numbers. The full tables, the method and what drafting saves are in how much a headwind slows you down.

Want this for your own route? Windline shows the wind for every stretch, timed to your pace. Free. Make a free ride page →

How do you work out the headwind and crosswind on your road?

Split the wind into two parts against the way you're riding: the headwind component, which pushes straight back at you, and the crosswind component, which pushes from the side. The angle between your direction of travel and the direction the wind comes from decides the split.

Picture it in words. Draw an arrow along your road in the direction you're riding, and a second arrow from where the wind comes from, pointing at you. The part of the wind arrow lying along your road is the headwind; the part pointing across it is the crosswind. In numbers, headwind = wind speed × cos(angle) and crosswind = wind speed × sin(angle). For a 20 km/h (12 mph) wind:

Two rules fall out of the table: a wind within 30° of the nose is nearly all headwind, and a wind at 60° to the road still costs you half its speed. Remember, too, that weather services name wind for where it comes from (WMO), so a northerly blows from the north. Our guide to reading wind direction covers compass points, degrees and map arrows.

What do crosswinds do, and how do groups ride them?

Crosswinds cost less speed than headwinds but make riding harder in other ways. A pure crosswind still meets you at an angle and pushes the bike sideways. Gusts burst through gaps in hedges and between buildings, and passing lorries add their own blast. Deep-section wheels and loaded touring bikes catch more of it.

The technique: relax your grip, ride in the drops so more of your weight is over the front wheel, lean gently into the wind and leave room on the side it's pushing you towards. Bridges, ridges and coasts are where crosswinds hit hardest. Our guide to riding in crosswinds covers wheels, technique and spotting crosswind sections before you ride.

Groups change shape too. Into a headwind, riders line up: sitting close behind one rider cut drag by about 27% in one wind-tunnel study (Blocken et al., 2013), and mid-pack in a big peloton drag falls to 5–10% of riding alone (Blocken et al., 2018). In a crosswind the shelter moves to the side, so riders fan out diagonally in an echelon. On open roads, road width, traffic and local law limit how far that can go.

Why do gusts and shelter matter more than the average wind?

Because a forecast's headline wind is an average, and the peaks are what push you around. Under World Meteorological Organization (WMO) standards, weather stations measure the mean wind over 10 minutes and gusts as the highest 3-second average, both at 10 m (33 ft) above open ground.

That means two corrections for riders:

• Gusts. A forecast of 25 km/h (16 mph) gusting 55 km/h (34 mph) is a different day from a steady 25. Gusts decide your handling, especially on crosswind sections. See gusts vs sustained wind.
• Height and shelter. Wind is slower near the ground. Over open, flat grassland, the standard wind profile puts the wind at 1–1.5 m (3–5 ft) at about 60–70% of the 10 m figure. Hedges, trees and buildings cut it further: WMO notes their wakes can stretch 12–15 times their height downwind, so a 10 m (33 ft) row of trees disturbs the wind for roughly 120–150 m (390–490 ft). Ridges, bridges, dykes and coasts do the opposite. More in why the wind on your bike isn't the wind in the forecast.

When is it too windy to ride?

When the gusts or crosswinds threaten your control, not when the headwind makes you slow. There's no official safe wind speed for cycling, and official weather warnings always override any rule of thumb. This table is a cautious starting point built on the Beaufort scale. Use whichever number, mean or gust, puts you in the worse row.

The Beaufort speeds match Environment and Climate Change Canada and the Met Office, and the land descriptions come from Canada and the US National Weather Service. The 64 km/h (40 mph) gust line is where one Cycling UK club, in Louth, England, cancels or reroutes rides. The full decision table, and what lowers your personal limit, is in how windy is too windy to cycle. Our Beaufort scale for cyclists translates each force for riders.

Should you ride into the wind first, and when is it calmest?

Usually yes, and usually early, but check both against the forecast for the hours you'll ride. The standard advice is headwind out, tailwind home, so the hard part comes while you're fresh. It fails when the wind builds or swings during the day, when the heat arrives later, or when a slow outward leg leaves you riding home in fading light. See should you ride into the wind first.

Over land, wind has a daily rhythm. Daytime heating mixes faster air from higher up down to the ground. A US National Weather Service meteorologist in Nebraska describes gusty surface winds that usually begin in late morning, peak in the afternoon and die away by early evening (2014). Coasts add sea breezes, usually strongest in mid-afternoon in the warmer months (MetService, New Zealand). Perth, Australia, has a famous one: the south-westerly "Fremantle Doctor" that arrives on summer afternoons (Bureau of Meteorology). Passing fronts break the pattern. More in the best time of day to cycle to avoid wind.

How much colder does the wind make a ride?

Noticeably, because on a bike the air across your skin is your own speed plus any headwind. On the wind-chill index shared by Environment and Climate Change Canada and the US National Weather Service, 0°C (32°F) with a 30 km/h (19 mph) wind feels like −6 (about 21°F). Ride at 25 km/h (15.5 mph) into a 10 km/h (6 mph) headwind and 35 km/h (22 mph) of air is crossing your face. Descents add more. Our cycling wind-chill guide has a table by speed and temperature, with layering advice.

How do you read a wind forecast for a route, not a town?

Read it stretch by stretch, at the hour you'll ride each one. A town forecast gives one place at one time; a ride is a line through the landscape that takes hours. That's the idea behind a route-timed forecast: split the route into stretches, work out when you'll reach each one at your pace, and read the forecast for that place at that hour.

You can do it by hand with a weather map and a pace chart, or let an app do the timing. Our guide to reading a weather forecast for a bike ride covers models, gusts, rain and heat, and the best weather apps for cycling compares the tools.

## Wind on a bike at a glance

Glossary of wind terms for cyclists

• Air speed: how fast the air moves past you, which is your ground speed plus the headwind component.
• Beaufort scale: a 0–12 scale of wind force, from calm to hurricane, used by weather services.
• Drafting: riding in another rider's slipstream to cut your air resistance.
• Echelon: a diagonal line of riders sheltering each other from a crosswind.
• Mean wind: the average wind speed, measured over 10 minutes under WMO standards.
• Sea breeze: an onshore wind that builds on warm days as the land heats faster than the sea.
• 10 m wind: the standard height for measured and forecast wind, 10 m (33 ft) above open ground.

How do you put it all together on a real ride?

Two worked examples: one in Europe, and one from the 2,093 km (1,300-mile) tour Windline was built for, which runs in October 2026.

A Dutch out-and-back. Say you plan 50 km (31 miles) out along an open coast road in the Netherlands and back, with 20 km/h (12 mph) of wind blowing straight along it. At the effort for 25 km/h (15.5 mph) in still air, the headwind leg takes 3h20 and the return 1h19: 4h39 in all, not 4h00. Ride the headwind first unless it's forecast to ease later, and pack food and light for nearly five hours. On open ground the wind at your height is about 60–70% of the forecast, so treat these times as the worst case.

Day 10: Fraserburg to Sutherland, South Africa. This 108 km (67-mile) stage on 14 October 2026 heads west-south-west out of Fraserburg, runs south-west for about 65 km (40 miles), then turns west for the last 20 km (12 miles). Suppose the forecast says 25 km/h (16 mph) from the north-west. The road turns that one number into three different rides:

So a "north-westerly" means a long crosswind day with a real headwind for the last 20 km (12 miles), when legs are tired. The plan follows: keep something in reserve for the finish, ride the middle with a relaxed grip, and check the gusts for that crosswind stretch. If the wind were forecast to swing west in the afternoon, the finish would get harder still: the case for an early start.