Riding in the rain

No rain this morning! Actually the sun came out as there was more blue sky than clouds.

After a days work of waiting for the rain-soaked grass to dry, visiting with my neighbor Bob, trapping gophers, trapping pocket gophers, visiting with Grant my bee keeper, and pulling weeds, I decided to ride my bicycle into town to get the weekly papers. Besides, the mosquitos were out in force making weed pulling a distraction to my swatting mosquitos.

Rain clouds appeared to the west. The 6 pm weather forecast mentioned a possibility of rain and these clouds now seemed to be moving quickly. Still I wanted the papers and figured a race between me and the rain clouds would make the ride interesting.

I added more air to my bicycle's tires as they were a little low, and to ensure a quicker ride. Off I went.

Now I could have gathered the papers I needed at a couple of places in a ride of 6 miles total. But now that the leading edge of the clouds was overhead, it looked like they had "more bark than a bite" and that little rain would fall where I was, at least for the time being. I rode on to the Super 1 grocery store where I could get all the various papers at once. While there was a shorter route to Super 1 it was along a busy road, and besides, still no rain.

By the time I reached my next decision point "10 miles or 12 miles total?" a few rain drops were sprinkling. Umm... let's not push my luck. I took the shorter way home: 2.8 miles to go. I was cranking on my bicycle and generating body heat in the warm 68 F air. I saw the rain drops making more-and-more of the pavement wet, but did not feel them.

At 1.5 miles from home the rain increased and all the pavement was wet. I started to feel some rain drops break through my body heat. I was down on my bicycle's lower handlebars when I noticed in my peripheral vision a flash of pink light. No thunder or sound. It was pink heat lightning.

At 1 mile from home I turned onto the highway that led .3 mile to my next turn off. Definitely raining now; water was on the pavement. Not only could I see it, I could hear the water as the cars passed me at 65+ mph. This time when the pink lightning flashed I could see its jagged arc from cloud to cloud. A double flash also helped in seeing it. A few seconds later the low sound of thunder.

At the ".7 mile from home" turnoff I had to wait on the road's shoulder to make a left turn across the 4 lanes of the highway as now a string of cars came whizzing past. Wait... wait... wait... w..a..i..t.. then the last vehicle. A semi-truck. Great. Now I am covered in a spray of mud and water, and not just water. My shirt was so wet the wind from the passing semi couldn't blow my shirt up my back as sometimes happens.

A half mile from home the rain noticeably picked up. I had my head down so as not to breathe water as I sucked air. I was getting soaked. All over. I started to feel the water in my shoes. Not much longer and I would begin to notice the movement of the water in my shoes as I peddled - even though the shoes are tight.

The road was not a road but a sheet of water punctuated by rain drops. I had to slow way down when taking the corners, then speed up again on the straight-a-ways. No cars headlights on my road. Good, as it is getting hard to see the road's edge and I can ride wherever in my lane.

Home and I rushed for my house's covered entrance pushing my bicycle the last few steps. Once I unlocked the house door I stripped off my wet clothes and rung the water from them. Then went inside. My earlier extra body heat was all long gone now and I quickly found a dry towel.

My rain gage said that .14 has fallen so far. Funny, it seemed to be far more than that!

The newspapers on my bicycle's rack? They mainly stayed dry. I had some plastic to cover them. I'm not totally reckless!