Cycle Thunder Storm Surfing




Today on my way home I had so much fun surfing the wind.  First let me explain.  For those of you who surf or sail you will get what I am about to describe.  I use to surf and sail and this is what I have experienced doing both activities.

Most of the excitement that I have had surfing, sailing and now cycling has been at the edge of bad weather.  You know what I mean, not really nasty fowl weather, just slightly bad weather.  Today I had the experience that I use to have when I would paddle out on my belly board into surf that I knew had the possibility of hurting me, but I paddled out anyway.  I remember looking at sets of waves coming in and the butterflies in my stomach seemed to want to come out of my ears.  Catching a wave and just getting on it before it broke on me and threw me into a salt water washing machine was always a thrill.

Weather radar at 6:45 PM
If you look at the video that I took on this evening's commute home you will see a similar phoneme with the weather.  I like to ride when it is getting ready to be stormy.  The temperature dropped 20 degrees from the time I left work until I arrived home from 92 degrees to 70 degrees.

The storm has to be just right for me to set up a tail wind so that I am on a road that is going to get me home.  Sometimes I work it out and sometimes I do not.  I like to try to figure out how to work the headwinds and the tail winds and still stay out of the really bad lightning and horizontal arm stinging rain.  Today was a day when I decided to forgo my usual route down Leary Road as I saw the thunder cell stacking up right over it.  As I turned on one of my short detours to home on Old Pretoria Road where I took the video I had the sense that the storm with the winds was like a big wave that I was getting ready to ride to my house.  This is why I call myself Cycle Thunder, because no matter how tired I am if there is a thunder storm chasing me I find the energy to haul myself home and try to out run the storm. I was easily cruising above 20 MPH as the humidity gave way to the ever cooling drop in the temperature as the rain just started to fall around me.

My Ride Statistics


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

1999 Serotta Rapid Tour

Image
I wanted to capture some of the information on the Internet written about my bike, a custom 1999 Serotta Rapid Tour (SRT).  I have about 10,000 miles on this bike.  This year alone I have 2,500 miles on it.  I have 1,000 miles so fare in April on this bike.  I have can only remember one major tune up done on this bike. Here is an interesting discussion that I found about my bike on the Pace Line Forum .  Here is a quote about the bike that I own and love "Rapid Tour was Serotta's version of a bike that would fit reasonably sized tires with fenders, and could carry light luggage for credit card touring. In a word, "sensible" and not just a fair weather toy for let's play racer. There's nothing "low end" about that." ~ palincss 05-01-2010 03:33 PM I think that I have upgraded my components from what was on the stock SRT.  My SRT has Shimano Ultegra derailleur and the stock SRT has a Shimano 105 derailleur.  Here a photo of a stock SRT.
Read more

Go to a whole new level

Image
Cycle Thunder II I am recovering from a near death experience that happened on March 17, 2014.  I was hit from behind on my way to work and could have died, but I did not.  I could make up all sorts of excuses of why I should never get on a bike again, but that is not who I am. Cycle Thunder I was sitting in my living room this past week in front of the TV and my wife was napping beside me.  Out of nowhere I starting sobbing and tears flowed freely from my eyes.  Was I mourning the lost of a bicycle?  I went to work for two days this week and I carried my bike in the back of my truck.  I have not had the heart to take it out since getting it from the Dougerty Police Department.  I guess I am having a hard time of letting it go. Before I had this accident I had already made up in my mind that this 1999 Serotta Rapid Tour was the last bicycle that I would ever buy.  I had already decided that I would only ride just so fast and that I would never be able to keep up with
Read more

Strava Segment Madness

Image
I did not set up the segment.  I did not want to participate in the segment.  I found myself looking at my results and wondering who was number on on the segment leader board list and then I was hooked. There are not too many hills in here in SW Georgia, but one of them is near my job.  This segment is on the final approach to the ASU campus.  The grade is a measly .7% to 1.4% (54M to 64M) over a distance of about 2 KM.  The record was held by  Edward Picolo  at 4 minutes and 3 seconds.  When I started bike commuting in September 2012 I was generally tired at this point of my commute.  When I started using Strava in January 2013 I discovered the segment and I was a bit stronger in my endurance and I was always making an effort to finish strong up this hill. Only 5 riders appear on the leader board since 2012.  I have been competing against my best efforts for a few months until yesterday when I decided that I was going to beat 4:03 on the segment. I finished at 3:48 and I was am
Read more