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What a ride! I left work around 4:00ish. I could see
some large rain cells off to the east, but it didn’t look too bad. My
program called for AP#1 (two sets of three anaerobic power interval
efforts - 45 seconds at max effort). The roads were dry when I left
work. I started my first set of intervals after turning onto 8th street
from McClintock. My second effort was interrupted by a red light, but
the rest went pretty good. As I was finishing the set, the road turned
wet. I hadn’t felt any rain, but it was obvious some heavy rain had
passed through. About 10 minutes into my break between sets, the wind
picked up quite a bit so I decided not to do my second set of intervals.
Right before Val Vista Road I felt some sprinkles and there was a small
river running down the bike lane which forced me out into the right
driving lane. Before Greenfield the rain really started coming down and
that river got wider and deeper, going over the sidewalk in places. To
stay out of it, I would have had to move into the left driving lane
blocking eastbound traffic, so I gave in and moved back into the bike
lane. Cars that went by drenched me to my chest (at least it was warm
water) and I had to take my glasses off to see. Just before Higley
something like a microburst hit. Branches broke and a side wind almost
took my bike out from under me. It was insane! It was slow going through
the Higley intersection, but then the strong winds eased off. The water
in the road had gotten deeper. If I wasn’t moving I’m sure my bottom
bracket would have been submerged and my feet went underwater at the
bottom of every pedal stroke. I’ve never ridden through anything like
that before, it was a blast! I’m sure people thought I was crazy with
the grin I had on my face while plowing through a torrential downpour,
but it was a real rush! The main part of the storm passed before I got
to Recker Road. At Recker there were large tree branches in the
intersection and along the side of the road. It rained fairly steady the
rest of the way home, but not too bad. I stopped to grab the mail and
could see another heavy cell approaching, so I hurried home. My wife was
thoughtful enough to have left the garage door open for me. The instant
my rear wheel passed through, the sky opened up even harder than before.
I went inside and looked out on our patio and it looked like a hurricane
was going through with lots of hail and rain. Less than five minutes
after I got home the power went out. Wow.
I flipped my bike over when I got home to try to drain as much water as
possible. There appeared to be less water in it than I would have
expected. My Polar data shows that the temperature was 101 when I
started my first interval and 72 when I finished the ride. On Saturday I
drove down Brown and SRP was out replacing power poles that had snapped
along Brown just east of the Power and Brown intersection. I’m sure that
second storm cell did the damage and explains the power outage. The
strength of that storm cell was just awesome. If I had been running 10
minutes later, I would have hit that second cell and maybe the tail end
of the cell I did ride through. Luckily there wasn’t any lightening (I
would have found cover if there was – probably).
Quite an experience! :-)
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