June 28 Ride Report

[Lise]

Today I had the bright idea to try to outrun a thunderstorm. I got about 2 miles into my commute and pulled off at a gas station as the lighting flashed all around me. The rain started about a minute after I pulled off. So I got to hang out for about 15 minutes or so. The roads were nice and wet, so I got that familiar swamp a** from water spraying up my backside. My normal commuter has a fender, but the rear tire is flat. So that was groovy. After class, I rode up to Performance to get new tires, then home. 26.8 miles all together. Oh and a great headwind on the way home. Blah.

Yeah, what was that yesterday?

The 4th Wed of the month is "Street Cleaning Day", aka, "Large Revenue for the City Day" in the neighborhood where I work. So the options are:

1. Drive 3 miles (15 min) to work, drive around for 25 min, walk a mile from the parking place you finally find
OR
2. Ride the bike (18 min), lock it up in the basement of the clinic, go to work.

A no-brainer, right? Unless it's lightning, thundering, and hailing when I need to leave for work. Sigh. I knew I'd end up spending $$ on gas just trying to park, and then walk in the rain/hail anyways, so I dug out my yellow rain poncho and took off on the bike. Luckily didn't get myself killed with that big yellow plastic thing flapping all around me. "Who's a duck on wheels NOW?!", I thought. Am I right that the rubber in the wheels makes me safer riding a metal contraption with lightning flashing all around me?

Coming home it wasn't raining anymore, but quite a wind out of the west. Whopping total of 6.11 miles, the standard ride to work mileage.

Maybe I'll turn up some rain gear at Turin on the 8th.

[betagirl]

Lise, I have no idea but did you get hit around 9pm lastnight too? I fell asleep on the sofa and woke up to quite the storm. I had a window open in my office, and spent a few minutes drying out some old papers

As for riding in storms, I've always thought to pull off if there's lightning. While there are rubber tires, I think it'd still hurt if you got hit. I pulled off more because of the lightning than the rain, though I had no rain gear so it was a plus to stay somewhat dry.

Wild weather. Today looks much more promising. I replaced my rear tire on the Trek, but I either bent my rim or it needs to be trued. I hope for the latter. So we'll see how the ride in goes today. At least at this hour I can hop the blue line if need be and take my bike with me.

[Lenusik]

I don't know how much I rode. I stayed at home on a trainer. I was pedalling pretty hard for about 45 minutes watching Wimbledon. It was 113F in Phoenix yesterday. I had to stay indoors.