The Cruel North Wind

Ok so it was from the North-East but cruel it certainly was: On my descent from Oaxaca I met a quite frankly, charming German couple (miracles happen), who told me I could expect some pretty fierce head and side winds as I crossed into Chiapas, my final Mexican state. They claimed that these are the strongest winds in the Americas north of Patagonia. Of course immediately my natural cynicism went into action: if these winds were so bad how come I was only hearing about them two days before hitting them? The next night I stayed with a bike mechanic who confirmed that the ride the next day would not be the cake walk that the flatness of my map suggested it might. Re-checking my map I noticed the name of one town, Ventosa (place of wind), and a load of wind farms around it, hhhmmm maybe my cynicism should take a back seat and pragmatism take the wheel. So I psyched myself up for a long day in the saddle but still didn't really buy into the hype. In the morning my casual attitude seemed fair enough, the wind was pretty strong but nothing I hadn't seen before or could handle, little did I know that this was just a prelude to what was awaiting me around the corner... Here we pause for a little geography lesson: Mexico is built very similarly to Jonny Bravo, with huge broad shoulders, pecks to put Arnie to shame but then tappering into a tiny waist more likely to be found on your average 16 year old anorexic. At this point the mountains, which had put me to work for the previous month, fade into flat plans for about 10 miles before climbing again to build into the Chiapan highlands. The effect of this is to create a tunnel of flatland between the Carribean and the Pacific, a tunnel which channels all the wind created by the very different conditions in these two vast bodies of water... Ok, lesson over. The tunnel effect means that you don't feel the full effect of the wind untill you are already in it. So as I approached Ventosa I had no idea that once I climbed the slight hill in front of me, I would be entering the cyclists' idea of the worst corner of hell. As I climbed this rise, swerving all over the road to try and contol my bike, being blown several times off the road, a car pulled up and the occupants shouted at me "do you want a ride?", "Absolutamente no. Gracias." They told me that in a while it would get stronger yet, again I declined, after all there was no room in the car. So I peddaled on and topped the rise, to be blown straight off the road by a savage side swipe. I got back onto my bike and somehow managed to get down the far side, dodgeing the lorries coming from both directions. Now at this point the wind reached its peak and instead of mearly sweeping us off the road, all 55kg of bike and kit and 85kg of prime Herbert steak went airbourne, both wheels off the road at once. I was stunned lying at the bottom of the ditch, I couldn't believe what had just happened. As I pushed my bike back up to the road I turned my face profile to the wind and went to take a breath of air, instead of the accustomed feeling, learned and confirmed by 23 years of experiment, of air filling my lungs, the remaining air was sucked out by the vaccum, the cause of the wind rushing past my open mouth. I tucked my head into my armpit and tried to push my bike along the road, holding it at as low an angle as possible to stop it and me being blown into the marsh waiting to gobble me up below. Unfortunately the wind contrieved to whip in under my bike and cartwheel it over my head. After this I sat in the ditch trying to contemplate my next move: I couldn't go back and I couldn't go forward, without being blown either into the marsh or into the path of a passing truck. I couldn't stay where I was: there was no chance of camping in this wind and I had no food and little water, to put it mildly I was fucked. Then my knight in his white pick up truck rode up to my rescue: "do you want a ride", "absolutamente si. Gracias". I was dumped ten km's up the road, still with (by normal standards) a howling side wind but at least I could ride in it without feeling death tapping his watch at me. This wasn't quite the end of my adventures with the wind. The next day I climbed up through a valley into the Chipan Highlands, the wind building as I approached the top, as I turned round the final bend the wind smashed into my side sending me summersaulting across the black top and into the drainage ditch, a couple of meters from a shear drop off of several hundred feet. So what have I learnt from battling the second strongest winds on the two continents of the Americas? Don't cycle in Patagonia.