Riding With Thor

With thunderstorm season now in high gear, I’m reminded of the close calls I’ve with lightning while bicycling.

Sitting on a metal frame while lightning threatens nearby strikes most people as unwise.  It probably is.  It’s one of the few cycling risks that can really catch you by surprise.

This isn’t going to be about lightning safety.  There are plenty of other sources out there for lightning safety facts.  I will say however that those skinny little bicycle tires won’t do anything to “insulate” you from a lightning strike.

I’ve had three close calls with lightning while cycling.

Central Florida is often called the lightning capital of North America, but only one of my close calls with Thor was here.  It was near Kissimmee, FL as I was biking home from work back in the early ’80s.  The area around Kissimmee is wide open former ranch lands.  A bicyclist on a road there is one of the taller things around, and hence a good target.

As I pedalled I watched as a typical thunderstorm grew up from the southwest.  While it didn’t appear to be moving very fast, it blew up so suddenly that was on top of me in minutes.  I knew I wouldn’t make it home before it caught me, so I cranked hard for the nearest convenience store.

As I rolled the bike up onto the front walk of the store under the overhang, a bolt of lightning hit right around the corner, striking the building’s electrical service and knocking out its power.  The strike was probably less than 20 feet away, though I didn’t actually see it, since the building blocked my view.  Fortunately the building took the hit.

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The most dramatic strike was in West Virginia in the late ’90s.  Carol & I were in Slatyfork for the mountain biking festival.  At the end of the long Cass Railway Ride (in which you ride to the Cass Scenic Railway, ride the train up to the top of  a mountain, then bike down), Carol took the shorter paved route while I took the longer, more technical singletrack descent.  So she got back to the campground before things got interesting.  As I rode the paved highway back to the campground, a thunderstorm kicked up.  Another rider was about 20 to 30 yards ahead of me and as he passed a powerline pole a bolt of lightning hit the pole.  He wasn’t harmed, though he might have dampened his shorts a bit (no matter, the rain was on the way).  As I passed the spot where the lightning hit, I saw sparks still dancing along the wire roadside fence.

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For sheer terror it’s hard to beat our 1999 experience on Powell Point in Utah.  Carol & I mountain biked the long climb up to this 10,000-foot high point near Bryce Canyon.  I’m told on clear days one can see 100 miles from Powell Point.  This was not the case on the day of our trip.  Clouds were moving in and it appeared that rain was a distinct possibility.  But you know how it goes…”We’ve come this far; we’ve got to see it!”

About a quarter mile from the point the trail got a little technical.  It wouldn’t have been so challenging if we’d been fresh and if we hadn’t been at 10,000 feet.  So we parked the bikes and hiked the last few hundred yards.  The point is sparsely covered with only some scraggly bristlecone pines about 15 to 20 feet tall.  At the point we see a small cloud straight out to the south.  Wait…is it really a small cloud?  Maybe it’s a big cloud farther away.  The scale of these lands is confusing for a flatlander.  Well, it’s interesting to see rain falling 2,000 feet below you.  The point itself comes to a surprisingly small, well, point.  Carol is standing out on a narrow piece of rock only a little bigger than a car and getting a 270-degree view of a 2,000-foot drop.

It starts to rain just a bit, so I kneel down to stash the camera FLASH!-CRACK!  They came at the same time.  Only about one second later and we are running, full bore, away from the point.

When we get nearly back to the bikes (which are down a bit from the point and in a much safer spot), Carol realizes she’s dropped her thermal top. (We’d carried thermal underwear with us, knowing it would be a chilly descent, though climbing of course kept us warm.)  She’d been holding it under her jacket to ensure it didn’t get wet, and it must have fallen out during the mad dash.  I send her down to the bikes while I return to the point.

Running at 10,000 feet in cycling shoes towards the site of a recent lightning strike did not rank high on my list of things to experience.  But for Carol to descend without a thermal layer and with the possibility of more rain meant a serious risk of hypothermia.

One my way back out to the point I smell a very odd smell I can only describe as “metallic.”  I realize it must be ozone, which is created in lightning strikes.

Carol’s thermal top is nearly all the way back at the very point.  It turned out I had dropped something too; the mini-pump had bounced out of my CamelBack pack.

There was only that one close strike, and the rain mercifully held back and didn’t drench us.

I think it’s good to have Mother Nature give you a good scare once in a while; if for no other reason than to be able to share some good stories.

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