With approaching thunderstorms and in the event of lightning while pedaling in an area where no buildings or other shelters are available, what is your response to the situation?

peddle to the nearest lightning safe shelter and hope that lightning doesnt start.

If lightning does get close, get off the bike. lay it down. walk about 50 feet away and assume the lightning position. preferably in a ditch.

https://www.ekshiksha.org.in/images_n...I/figure_6.JPG <------ lightning position


more info:
https://science.howstuffworks.com/nat...lightning8.htm


dont lie flat on the ground
dont use things like trees as shelter. As they will attract lightning.
dont stand in an open field
dont set up any tents or anything like that.


do try to find a dip, ravine, ditch, depression, sinkhole
do use the lightning position
do get into a car if you can
do get into a building if you can

Ride like hell to find the nearest building or shelter. Once we ran upon an old over grown baseball field out in the middle of nowhere, probably built in the 40's or 50's and we took refuge in this fallen down dugout for a couple hours and rode the severe storm out with a blanket thrown over us because the temps dropped so dramatically.

As a last resort, you might stop and throw your tent up in a lower lying area to give you some shelter (just make sure it's not next to a creek or stream that could flood).

Good, comprehensive response.

Didn't know about the lightning position, interesting.

I would add, it's always good to be observant of changing conditions, this g generally has given me sufficient warning and time to get to some shelter.

Sometimes, all you can do is pray.

Regarding the "lightning crouch"

The NWS rather gives guidelines on avoiding the situation in the first place. But when it happens:


Avoid open areas.
Don’t be or be near the tallest objects in the area.
Don’t shelter under tall or isolated trees.
In the woods, put as much distance between you and any tree.
If in a group, spread out so that you increase the chances for survivors who could come to the aid of any victims from a lightning strike.

Or a tunnel. Robow should remember the Enlow tunnel on the Montour Trail. It saved my but once. There was a huge storm brewing over my shoulder. I knew the Enlow was just a couple miles away. I pedaled like hell to get there. Just as I entered the tunnel I saw a huge strike right near the entrance were I entered. Scared the hell out of me.

Sometimes we just grab our tent's ground cloth, get clear of the bike, and try to stay dry, until it blows over.

This was 10:00 in the morning while touring in The Netherlands, and this is actually how dark it got. This is a picture with the camera's flash on. It was really spooky. We were digging out our raingear, and the groundcloth. It was one hell of a show for about 15 minutes



We had just set up our tent in a small RV park in eastern Oregon when the pre- frontal squall hit. The winds caused a wildfire to jump the highway closing the road, and was strong enough to blow down these large cottonwood trees. Our tent was fine; we pitched it behind a pretty stout fence.



We couldn't out run this one so I'm digging the ground cloth out. We laid the bikes down and got about 20 yards away in the roadside ditch. We were the tallest things out there (southern Idaho)

makes me think of canoe camping with ours and some other families a bunch of years ago. Were about to leave the canoe in site to head home when an almighty storm came by. We all grabbed a tarp and all huddled under it and I remember the incredible sound of thunder and rain on the tarp, and us adults, probably at least 6, having to hold on with all our might to the edges of the tarp to stop it from flying up.
Kids still remember it.

trees were all around, so good thing no big branches came down or worse near us.

That official recommendation of sitting in a field in the prone "lightning" position when a storm rains down on you reminds me of when I was a boy driving home one afternoon when I happened upon a tornado, for a single split second I thought about what I had been told as to get out of the car and lie down in a ditch, may sound good in theory but in the moment of truth, I simply floored that little 72 Mustang and prayed the tornado wasn't going the same direction I was.

I haven't had it happen on a bicycle, but I often hike the high ridges in the Rockies in lightning season. If I can't bail off the ridge, my response is to pitch my tarp and sit on my dry insulating pad, and take a break and eat something. I once did the lightning position without a shelter set up and it was horrible--cold rain and hail put me into second stage hypothermia a half hour or so into an hour-long storm.

After those ridge hikes, riding a bike in a storm just doesn't seem so risky and at the speed you can travel it's often easy enough to bail out to proper shelter. Or don't ride out in the storm to start with.

This story of the 1000K randonnee I did in Manitoba tells the tale of how I dealt with at least 2 big storms. That was a very stormy ride.

Charlene Barach (Machka) - Manitoba Randonneur 1000K

Was that an 1872 Mustang?

Hayyyyyy Wilbur, watch that. I'm talkin' 1972 Stang, it's a shame it wasn't my buddy's 70' Stang with the 351 Cleveland in it, or I would have been able to outrun that tornado even if it was going my way. Ha

I was wondering what was a boy driving a car, but I digress.

Unfortunatly the lighning crouch is the only opting if there is no shelter.

Lying flat on the ground could let lightning that strikes near you discharge through your body since there is less resistance through your body than the ground. lying down will make it travel through and around your heart.

Standing up makes you more likely to be directly hit.


Its true that the crouch does barely anything, but its still better than the only alternatives that you have when stuck in the middle of nowhere.

building>car>tunnel> ditch >lightning position> lying down > standing up

That used to be the recommendation and I'd probably crouch myself. You tend to do anything that you think might help even the slightest. But the NWS no longer recommends the crouch.

How do I avoid having to use the Lightning Crouch?We don't recommend the crouch because it will not significantly lower your risk of being killed or injured from a nearby lightning strike.

Lightning Safety - How Lightning Works

According to this article standing up is a bad idea because you are slightly more likely to get hit than if you crouch (again, only very slightly. the crouch basically does nothing to prevent you from getting hit).

The article also says that laying down is a bad idea too. So basically you are left with the lsser of three evils.

quote:
Never lay down on the ground. After lightning strikes the ground, there is an electric potential that radiates outward from the point of contact. If your body is in this area, current can flow through you. You never want the current to have the ability to pass through your body. This could cause cardiac arrest, not to mention other organ damage and burns. By making your body as low to the ground as possible and minimizing the amount of your body in contact with the ground, you can lower the possibility of a lightning-related injury. If a strike were to occur near you, the current would have a much more difficult time flowing through your body in this position."
end quote
"

What if someone has a surgical implant (i.e. titanium plate)? Does this put them more at risk?

i say a couple "Hail Marys" and keep riding.

Some locals at a big group picnic went underneath a big oak tree to avoid a thunderstorm & 3 were injured from a lightning strike. Also I met an old lady who described how a bolt of lightning hit her house, she was inside & saw the lightning circle the living room though she wasn't injured, wow. Good tips on lightning avoidance. OTOH big lightning storms can be interesting & spectacular. 50-75 annual US lightning deaths but only a handful of reports on cyclist lightning deaths.

Either one would be overkill. Typical ground speed of a tornado is about 30 mph although speeds have been observed from 0 - 70 mph. Note that this is separate from the swirling wind speeds inside the tornado which can be hundreds of mph.

I'm not going to get too worked up about it unless I am on a mountain or some other reason to believe the lightning is funnelled my way. Just because some expert has come up with a way to make you look even more foolish than normal in the foam helmet and fluro garb, doesn't mean one has to take the bait.

A few years back though, a bolt hit our ash tree, and caused an explosion the aftermath of which looked like a explosion in a rack of 2x4s. Large pieces of wood were blown a hundred yards or more away. It happened the part of the tree that was conductive was a quadrant away from the house. Otherwise there is some possibility that people standing at the windows, or the house itself, would have been hard hit. It was a like a claymore explosion, very directional, but you could have been crouching a hundred yards away and taken a 20 pound javelin in the head. That was a funnel situation where the ash was the largest tree for at least 100 yards around, and the house that is also on the small rise was spared.

So when a thunderstorm, hence lightning ---- comes. As you be riding.
You are going to keep going; not gonna stop.
That lightning won't change you in any way?