Although we were called 'crazy' yesterday for cycling in the rain, my daughter had an absolute blast cycling home in the torrential rain this afternoon. At the first crack of thunder, she yelled 'Woo-hoo!' at the prospect of cycling in a thunderstorm (but that one rumble was all we got). Cycling through what she called 'flash floods' (3-4 inch deep rivers of rainwater), and past what she called 'waterfalls' at every storm drain made her day. She turned our neighborhood streets into an imaginary rainforest.
Yeah, every bit of us that wasn't covered with a rain cape got soaked. But we
had an adventure.
And most cyclists actually avoid cycling in 'bad' weather. That's what I call
crazy.
I could not possibly agree more! I LOVE riding in crazy weather!
ReplyDeleteEvidence:
http://www.rantwick.com/2009/08/stormy-stuff.html
Perhaps your thunderstorms are not as electrifying as those around DFW. Hard rain IS fun, but a lightning strike is something else. I have a photo of a Jeep Wrangler struck in a parking lot. The cars on both sides were badly damaged but were repairable. Usually, you can wait out the lightning.
ReplyDeleteThe chances of being hit by lightning are extremely low, especially where we live, which has plenty of tall buildings and trees to attract lightning strikes. Sure, there is a risk, but if I had stayed in the school, there's no guarantee that the building I was in wouldn't be hit.
ReplyDeleteLos Alamos County is slightly behind Florida in number of lightning strikes, most of which occur in our summer, North American Monsoon season. I've ridden home in thunderstorms when I had to, counting the seconds between the flash and the boom. A couple times that was about zero. Scary stuff.
ReplyDeletePlus up here, we get what I call atmospheric inversions, i.e., the thunderstorm hits and the temperature plummets by about twenty or more degrees. That can be a real chore if you are up at 9000 feet and unprepared, as I was one day when a nice, seventy degree ride across the Jemez Mts turned into a driving hailstorm in the forties. I spent an hour taking cover under a rock overhang until my long suffering wife rescued me. We passed the NFS trailhead a little up the road and the two portable outhouses were each surrounded by bicycles. I chuckled, preferring my rock ledge to that shelter. Dinosaur Rock is shown at this post.
http://www.labikes.blogspot.com/2013/09/further-comments-on-nm4.html
Ian's situation sounds a little more tame than all that.
Yeah, by a lot!
ReplyDelete