Wet, Wet, Wet

The weather forecast for today was scattered thunderstorms.  Can you already guess what happened???

The Weather Channel website said that the earliest it would storm was 5:45.  That gave me about an hour and 45 minutes.  I decided to just do a 20 mile ride; I would have more than enough time to do that.  Here is the play-by-play of the ride.

Mile 4 – I noticed dark clouds off in the distance, but I didn’t think much of it. 

Mile 6 – Those dark clouds started to look very stormy.  I thought perhaps they looked dark because of my sunglasses, but I was wrong.  I took off the glasses and the clouds still looked threatening. 

Mile 8 – The clouds had become ominous, so I changed my route and start riding back toward my apartment just in case.

 

Mile 10 – The dark clouds didn’t seem so bad.  I figured I was being paranoid earlier and I would probably end up back at my apartment under blue skies.  I considered heading back out again but decided against it.

Mile 15 (1.5 miles away from the apartment) – It started to sprinkle.  It was a nice, easy spring-sort of sprinkle.

Mile 15.5 (1 mile away) – I thought it would have been kind-of fun to get caught in a storm.

Mile 15.75 (¾ of a mile away) – Lightening started to steak across the sky and I took back my previous thought about it being fun to bike in a storm.

Mile 16 (½ a mile away) – Downpour.  Absolute Downpour. 

It’s hard to explain all the things that happened in the last few minutes of the ride, but I am very thankful that I had turned around when I did.  The rain was coming down in sheets so fast that the storm drains couldn’t keep up.  There was a good inch of standing water on the road; that is the first time I’ve had a wake while riding my bike.  The wind was gusting like crazy and blowing me around.  Half of my brain was telling me to go faster so that I could get inside, and the other half of my brain was telling me to slow down as I went speeding around corners through standing water.  The most painful part was the hail…at least it wasn’t very big.

I did make it back to my apartment in one piece.  I was able to actually pour the excess water out of my shoes; I couldn’t have gotten any wetter if I had jumped into a pool.  As I was drying myself and my bike off the thunder was so loud it actually shook the building.  The power flickered once and then came right back on.  The storm was powerful, but it seemed to be short.  By the time I had dried my bike off the worst part of the storm appeared to be over.  That’s why I left the screen door open while I jumped in the shower.  There is a good overhang above the screen door so the nice gentle rain that was falling wouldn’t get inside.  Of course that gentle rain turned into giant-angry raindrops driven by hammering winds.  I was wet, my bike is wet, and now my apartment is wet.  At least everything is equal J.