30 Miles.....Maybe not today!

[rkimble]

Well I tried to do my first 30 miler today and made it almost half way and the clouds opened up. Severe thunderstorms I had to seek cover and call my wife to come pick me up :mad:

How do you guys handle rain while on a ride? I was feeling great and could have easily made the 30 miles. The longest I have gone up until today was about 10 miles. I had the chain come of the one time while shifting at the top of a hill but other than that everything was going good until mother nature had to spoil my day.

Stats:

Total Time 61 minutes 8 seconds
Distance 12.73
Average Speed 12.5
Max Speed 35.4

Max HR 174
Average HR 133

Here is a link to a few pics from todays ride:

http://picasaweb.google.com/rkimble67/2007_0701BikeRide

[JumboRider]

Don't mess with thunderstorms. Light rain without a threat of lightning is fun just to ride. Fenders for the win.

[KingTermite]

Now that I'm in Seattle area, I don't think we get "thunder" storms too much out here...usually light rain.

But....I moved here from Florida (Tampa area - lightning capital of the world), so I know of what you speak. My method used to be to keep close eye on weather forecasts to try to make sure I wasn't going to get stuck in it.

[jaxgtr]

Rain ok, lightning bad, very bad.

[Wogsterca]

Well I tried to do my first 30 miler today and made it almost half way and the clouds opened up. Severe thunderstorms I had to seek cover and call my wife to come pick me up :mad:

How do you guys handle rain while on a ride? I was feeling great and could have easily made the 30 miles. The longest I have gone up until today was about 10 miles. I had the chain come of the one time while shifting at the top of a hill but other than that everything was going good until mother nature had to spoil my day.


Thunderstorms, ya don't wanna mess with those, a Thunderstorm can always go severe, and severe thunderstorms can spawn hail, Derechos and Tornadoes, and a Derecho or Tornado can ruin your whole day.

A Derecho, for those not up on their meteorological terminology, is a fast straight line wind, that can cover a wide area, damage often looks like it could have been caused by a Tornado (roofs ripped off, tree limbs broken, trees uprooted

Now a couple of solutions, for just rain, the answer is fenders, not those sissy ones you remember from seeing on cheap 70's road bikes, but full fenders, they make light weight ones out of plastic these days, nice and quiet, they are also reasonably inexpensive.

In Canada or the United States, you should have and always carry a weatheradio, these are special radios, that tune to a specific radio band, they normally give a weather forecast and sometimes weather conditions. They can also be placed in monitoring mode, a special signal gets buried in the broadcast, that will cause the radio to alert you to dangerous weather. Many of these radios are quite small, roughly 6 x 10cm or so and about 3cm thick, they run off a couple of AA or AAA batteries, and in monitor mode can go 2-3 days on a set. I have an Oregon Scientific WR102 which can also be plugged in, for alerting at home.

[Patrickag]

I just keep going.. As hot as it is, the rain is kind of nice. :) Plus there is usually less traffic, and the cars that are out there drive slower and are far more cautious in severe weather. :D

[B Piddy]

Like almost everyone else, I agree...just keep going. As a bike to work commuter, I try to avoid morning rains, just because I don't like getting to work with all my stuff soaked, but if it's on the way home I could care less.

[Tom Stormcrowe]

Raingear!

[KeyLime]

http://www.wunderground.com/radar/map.asp

[rkimble]

Thanks for the advice guys. I do need to get some raingear and I wil nnext payday. Here in TN right now it is so hot and humid that the storms just pop-up whenever and where ever they please. There was only a 20% of storms today.