Anemometer for a bike?

I built this clinometer for my road bike, to go on the top tube. It's
basically an aquarium tube filled with sewing machine oil and a ball
bearing. It has markings for plus and minus 10% road grades.
http://www.keystandard.com/clinometer.jpg
I think this will work better than a bubble. I'll need to wait for the
snow to melt before I road test it.

But why stop there on instrumentation? Did you ever think that if you
had an anemometer (wind speed thingy) attached to the front of your bike
then you could subtract its speed reading from your actual road speed to
learn if you had a headwind? Has anyone here ever tried this?

On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 23:19:41 GMT, "Bruce W.1"
wrote:

I built this clinometer for my road bike, to go on the top tube. It's
basically an aquarium tube filled with sewing machine oil and a ball
bearing. It has markings for plus and minus 10% road grades.
http://www.keystandard.com/clinometer.jpg
I think this will work better than a bubble. I'll need to wait for the
snow to melt before I road test it.

But why stop there on instrumentation? Did you ever think that if you
had an anemometer (wind speed thingy) attached to the front of your bike
then you could subtract its speed reading from your actual road speed to
learn if you had a headwind? Has anyone here ever tried this?

Dear Bruce,

Oddly enough, there's a thrilling current thread on using
the Davis Windscribe wind meter:

http://groups.google.co.uk/groups?hl...com%26rnum%3D1
or http://tinyurl.com/48ccv

While the instigator of the thread might be described as
hopelessly fascinated by silly measurements, it should be
pointed out that he has only a single wind meter, while
another poster has shamelessly admitted to owning three of
them.

C*** F****

On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 23:19:41 GMT, "Bruce W.1"
may have said:

I built this clinometer for my road bike, to go on the top tube. It's
basically an aquarium tube filled with sewing machine oil and a ball
bearing. It has markings for plus and minus 10% road grades.
http://www.keystandard.com/clinometer.jpg
I think this will work better than a bubble. I'll need to wait for the
snow to melt before I road test it.

But why stop there on instrumentation? Did you ever think that if you
had an anemometer (wind speed thingy) attached to the front of your bike
then you could subtract its speed reading from your actual road speed to
learn if you had a headwind? Has anyone here ever tried this?

Many of us use the WGBR[1] test for presence of air currents. While
it's not precisely quantitative, with experience it is usually
possible to derive a satisfatory level of evaluation of the relative
perfomance enhancement and/or degradation that should be attributed to
drag differentials.



[1] Waving Grass Beside Road

--
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Bruce W.1 wrote:
I built this clinometer for my road bike, to go on the top tube. It's
basically an aquarium tube filled with sewing machine oil and a ball
bearing. It has markings for plus and minus 10% road grades.
http://www.keystandard.com/clinometer.jpg
I think this will work better than a bubble. I'll need to wait for the
snow to melt before I road test it.

But why stop there on instrumentation? Did you ever think that if you
had an anemometer (wind speed thingy) attached to the front of your bike
then you could subtract its speed reading from your actual road speed to
learn if you had a headwind? Has anyone here ever tried this?
I dont normally have any difficulty identifying a headwind ;-)

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 07:43:30 GMT, turkeytickler wrote:

Bruce W.1 wrote:
I built this clinometer for my road bike, to go on the top tube. It's
basically an aquarium tube filled with sewing machine oil and a ball
bearing. It has markings for plus and minus 10% road grades.
http://www.keystandard.com/clinometer.jpg
I think this will work better than a bubble. I'll need to wait for the
snow to melt before I road test it.

But why stop there on instrumentation? Did you ever think that if you
had an anemometer (wind speed thingy) attached to the front of your bike
then you could subtract its speed reading from your actual road speed to
learn if you had a headwind? Has anyone here ever tried this?

I dont normally have any difficulty identifying a headwind ;-)

Let's see: In a full aero tuck with hands on either side of stem and nose just
above it - check. Geared at 42 x 17 and pedalling your freeking guts out just to
maintain cadence - check. Yep, must be riding into the wind.

It gets bad here in Tampa sometimes.

Ron

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 14:32:01 GMT, RonSonic
may have said:

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 07:43:30 GMT, turkeytickler wrote:

I dont normally have any difficulty identifying a headwind ;-)

Let's see: In a full aero tuck with hands on either side of stem and nose just
above it - check. Geared at 42 x 17 and pedalling your freeking guts out just to
maintain cadence - check. Yep, must be riding into the wind.

It gets bad here in Tampa sometimes.

Try Amarillo. I think part of the reason that Palo Duro Canyon is a
popular bike spot is that it offers a little shelter from the
afternoon trades. You could hoist sail and make it to Oklahoma City
in short order without pedaling if you could use I-40 to do it.

--
My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail.
Typoes are not a bug, they're a feature.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.

turkeytickler wrote:

I dont normally have any difficulty identifying a headwind ;-)

But we all have trouble identifying tailwinds. You think "I'm really in
the zone today" as you cruise along at a comfortable 25mph. Then you
head homewards and realise you're busting a gut to do 14mph.

An anemometer measures wind speed only and doing so from a moving body
doesn't reveal much about direction of either ambient wind or rider
speed. For this reason, looking at the analysis of what effects wind
has is more informative. This item might help:

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/brandt/wind.html

Jobst Brandt