Riding Position into head/side winds

Clever Pun

A friend mentioned that for side winds you should adjust your arms & shoulders to use the wind much like a sailboat would...

Anyone care to shed and light on this?

thanks

MattHybrid

Possibly. Here is one piece of text about about side winds:
"Where should you carry your drink bottle? In the following cases, the base case is the rider riding on the brake hoods. It appears that a drink bottle provides an advantage particularly with strong side winds. One explanation is that the drink bottle provides a "sail effect" that acts to reduce drag"

if it works with a bottle, I imagine it will work with your arms and body.

Here's the link: http://www.analyticcycling.com/RiderAeroStudy.html

meanwhile

Clever Pun wrote:

A friend mentioned that for side winds you should adjust your arms & shoulders to use the wind much like a sailboat would...

Anyone care to shed and light on this?

thanks

A sailboat adjusts its wing to generate forward force from side winds. It can do this because the sail is an aerofoil - think of it as a wing, with forwards being "up". Your arms and shoulders are NOT aerofoils, so your friends theory is incorrect. I would therefore suggest that you continue to optimise the position of your arms and shoulders for i. hanging on to the bike and ii. not getting a crick in your neck.

However, riding a safe distance behind your friend in windy conditions should be great for a laugh - if you get one of those gusty uncertain winds he'll look like he has disco fever!

Clever Pun

meanwhile wrote:

However, riding a safe distance behind your friend in windy conditions should be great for a laugh - if you get one of those gusty uncertain winds he'll look like he has disco fever!