solveg

I woke up this am, and it was dark as dusk. Got a few sprinkles. Now it's lighter, but still looks ominous. Weather bug shows thunderstorms, but the hourly breakdown says "partly cloudy". I hear occassional thunder. I hate to take an off day so early in the week in case I need it later (getting a root canal on Tuesday).

Should I ride?

Tom Stormcrowe

Why not? Take some raingear and plan your route so you have shelter if it really storms, but go for it!

bdinger

Rain? Sure, bring it on! Lightning? Noooo thankyou.

Sandwarrior

I agree with Tom. I would also suggest tagging someone for SAG support in the event that lightning threatens your ride.

BeckyW

I think you should ask yourself why you're asking. YOU know whether you should ride today or not! Remember though, if you can hear thunder, you can get hit by lightning.

Terrierman

You won't melt and about the lightning: What, you want to live forever or something? Go ride, you'll love it.

solveg

Hmmmm. O-kaaay. Did I mention it's really cold right now, too? Like 60 degrees?

But, OK. If I want to tour someday, I suppose I better get used to it.

solveg

LOL! Because I'm really right in the middle on this. I've put in a few hard days.... (71.5 miles last week with 2 off days!) and I can feel it in my muscles today. It would be an acceptable day to take off, esp. considering the weather. But, part of me thinks my muscles will feel better after a ride. Seems like they want to move* because I'm only uncomfortable when I sit on the couch!

Sandwarrior

I love your response I am going to have to remember this the next time I ask myself that question.

Wogster

Short answer, I would wait until later (which is what I voted).

Long (novella) answer, thunderstorms on their own, often don't cause serious problems, providing they are not right on top of you. So, open a window, and look for lightning flashes, when you see one, start counting, 1001, 1002, 1003, etc until you hear the thunder, that's roughly how far away it is, in miles, now look at the clouds, are they moving that cell toward you, or away from you, Now go to the other side of the house, and look. Any more lightning and thunder coming toward you, no, well, the next step is to increase your distance you can see, and for that, you use the computer.

Both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Meterological Service of Canada's Weatheroffice operate online radar stations. Go to the appropriate site for your country, in the US it's under the local forecast, so type your city and state name in the top left box, then when you get the forecast, click on the radar image. In Canada, select radar imagery from the left hand column, and then pick your location off the radar "battle" map.

In both cases select to play multiple recent images, so you can see which way the storms are moving, purples and blues are just light rain, greens are heavier rain, your looking for yellows and reds, which are intense little pockets, usually thunder cells, if one of these is heading your way, stay indoors.

The problem with thunder cells is they can spawn other stuff, like derechos and Tornadoes, and downbursts.

A derecho is a widespread and long-lived, violent convectively induced windstorm that is associated with a fast-moving band of severe thunderstorms usually taking the form of a bow echo. A downburst is a rapidly sinking column of air, that hits the ground and spreads out. You probably know what a Tornado is.
All three can cause severe damage, and if your hit by one of these storms, while on a bike, you could end up wishing you had taken the day off.

Another thing to carry when riding, is a weather radio, these radios have the ability to alert you when severe weather is expected, often with plenty of notice, so you can stop a ride, and take cover for a while.

hr2510

RIDE! Heck the rain keeps you cool and you can ride longer. As far as lightning, Remember you don't have to be outside to be hit (It once came through my phone line and then a big corona ball came out of what was left of my computer and passed right over my head) and,lightning can strike out of a clear blue sky so the BIG QUESTION is ...Is this your time to be struck by lightning? I choose to not live my life worrying about lightning.

solveg

D'oh! When did I leave, like a minute* before your post? That just made a lot* of sense. The sky was socked in, and I did get online, but it was just a big blob of yellow. Nothing violent. But I have* a weather radio (got one when I was in Kansas close to the Greensburg tornado) and it is small enough to take.

Anyway, did my 12, and the first drops fell on me on the way back, a block from home. And I didn't have to wear my sunglasses for the first time in about a month. And it was the best temperature I'd ever ridden in.

I had two very interesting experiences on my ride:

The first is that, because it was pretty dark and all the tourists were driving home, I thought I'd try out my new hub generated light and my flashie on the back. I have never* had such courteous car behavior by every* car I encountered. They went slow, made eye contact, and went completely in the other lane to pass me. I don't know if they simply saw me better, or if they subconsciously thought, "Hey, she made the effort to put the lights on the bike, she must really not want to get hit." I'm going to put them on all the time... there's no drag with the hub generator.

The second thing is I met 2 guys biking coming the other way. They were out for an early morning jaunt, and they greeted me with big waves. As I passed, one of them said, "Enjoy the lake!"

Well, I thought about this for a while, because it was kind of an unusual thing to say. 90% of the people here are tourists, but we don't usually make a point of saying, "enjoy our village" unless you're selling them minnows. Then I realized what I looked like. I had the lights, the helmet, the pack on the back mounded with a sweatshirt and a rainjacket, my single earbud out of my ear. And I looked down at the speedometer, and I was going 15 mph and was in the drops.

I looked like a real biker! They thought I was going around the lake (67 miles) and packed for bear!

How's that* for cool?

Tom Stormcrowe

Extremely!

Sandwarrior

Glad you had a good ride. I am still at work, will be for the next 7 hours. Good news is that it's all time and 1/2

So another question to you, what do the * in your post represent? Just curious.

BeckyW

That is SO cool!

solveg

Oh, I'm old. I was on the web before there were photos on it. So I always forget I can bold or underline things, so I put an asterisk by them to emphasize them. LOL! I didn't realize people didn't do that anymore!

Tom Stormcrowe

That's OK, I just figured you were doing it for people that are still using an old UNIX Based text only browser.

Sandwarrior

Hey, you don't have to quit on my account. When I cross trained to work on computers for the Air Force, they still filled rooms and had vacum tubes

Terrierman

It was way cool.

Lovey and I are getting ready to leave for a lovely loop in a local pay to visit and ride their bike path nature park, Dogwood Canyon. It has a trout stream with huge stockers in it running right through the gut of it, it's a pretty place. Wish us luck.

solveg

Good luck! It sounds like you always have beautiful rides where you live...

solveg

Well, yah! Exactly! How lame is that*, I guess....

Tom Stormcrowe

I think we're showing our ages!

v1k1ng1001

This is what bikeforums.net looks like in Lynx.

https://seebot.org/cgi-bin/view.cgi?s...s.net&links=on

solveg

That is really cool! I like* it.

solveg

Just re-read this, and Holy Cow!