Did you ever enjoy an all day ride into a blowing wind? Well, cycling through the Australian Outback from north to south doesn’t offer real choices. The wind mostly blows from south, south-east or east.

What options do you have, if you do not have a headwind riding clone, the avatar who rides for you into the wind, once it gets stronger and facing you?

Like my clone, whom you can see leaving from lunch just at the time when I arrive at the lunch stop!

How to turn a headwind into a tailwind!

No matter how much the wind in your face will serve to cool you down in the glowing outback heat, the energy needed to ride against the wind heats you up more than the breeze can cool you. Since we can’t change the direction of the wind and there is no alternate route going south, we must find a different way to overcome the everyday headwind problem. Luckily TdA always guarantees to have some smart engineers amongst the riders, which ought to help resolve problems that are beyond standard cycling tour issues. One night at a desert camp a brainstorming session was started to come up with possible solutions to Turn a Headwind into a Tailwind …

A clever rider came up with the following solution, which helps him to always ride with joy, regardless of the obstacles the gusty wind does inject. The idea behind his solution is as simple as this. The human brain can always be cheated or programmed to recognize things that are actually different in nature or even not existing at all. So it just needs a way to make the brain think a headwind is in fact a lovely tailwind …

Look at the two photos below and see if you can find out his solution:

The left photo clearly shows, that he is not really pleased with the wind situation, certainly a strong headwind. Whereas the right photo, taken just after a slight modification to one if his cycling gears, make him ride with pure joy.

Did you get his idea?

Yes, you are right. Simply turn the back of the helmet into the wind and the airflow through the backside of the helmet to the front does the job to fool your brain. Give it a try! Let’s see, if we can see many more riders on the road, applying this great solution …