Forget What They Say About Wind In Patagonia

It gets much worse.

The winds in Patagonia are legendary. There is simply not enough land mass in the narrow point of South America to slow the “Roaring Forties” winds at these latitudes. These winds are stronger than the same winds in the northern hemisphere because they have been blowing over water with no interruption for so long and so far. This is the most southerly bit of land that dares to poke out into these winds.

There is normally a constant 25 mph wind blowing but riding along this part of Ruta40 was completely insane when the local weather service reported sustained 75 mph winds. When there was a road surface like tarmac or solid rock with some grip, it was feasible to lean the bike but when there was fresh gravel it was totally impossible to resist the sideways force – you cannot lean the bike far enough without losing all sideways grip. All of us went down or got knocked off the road. If you parked your bike with the side stand upwind, it was knocked over by the wind instantly.

Everyone seemed to invent their own technique for dealing with this – let the bike drift and then lurch upwind periodically, lean way off to windward to keep the bike vertical, go fast enough that the wheels  gave more gyroscopic help – but the physics won every time. These are big bikes and there is no way to curl up small enough to resist the force.

At one point our little group reached the end of tiny section of pavement with nothing but loose gravel all the way to the horizon and the wind directly across the road. We could not even stand let alone ride. Long story short, we left the bikes to the wind and hunkered down behind a small berm with yesterday’s sandwiches to see if the wind would die down. Four hours later, it had moderated a fraction and we took off again for another attempt and managed to get to tarmac and on to El Calafate.

All in all, about 100 kilometers of this nonsense. A massive shared experience and lifelong learning for all of us. No road will seem difficult after this.

This video is Chris Van Dyke trying to stand up.