Week 34

Date
August 21st, 2013

Distance
103 Miles

Time
6:28:56

Route Map/Profile

Weather

Plus some rain and hail

Picture

Hail

Ride Report
The vacation is over and it's back to life as normal. It was a rude awakening. The weather took a turn for the worse about 75 miles into the ride. It started off with heavy rain, turned to hail, and finished with flooding. The hail was small at first- small enough that I kept on riding. However, the hail kept getting larger, forcing me to stop. I assumed the time trial position, hoping most of the hail would hit me in the back. As it turns out, I could have used a TT helmet because a few of the hail stones made their way through the vents in my helmet and hit me directly in the head.

The hail didn't hurt too much, but for some reason I got hit in the left ear 3 times and one particular spot on my right leg kept getting hit over and over again no matter how many times I moved my leg. It's hard to say how long the hail lasted. Time moves very slowly in a moment like that. I would estimate 2 minutes, but that's probably an overestimate.

The rain was fairly heavy after the hail stopped, which caused flooding on the roads. Luckily, most of the water was on the westbound side of the road and I was going eastbound. The rain started to die out as I continued east. It wasn't raining on the Geiger descent, so I didn't have to freeze my butt off on the way home. I was thankful for that and now, a few days later, I'm thankful for the whole storm. It made for a more interesting ride.

Strava Link 1: Before the hail
Strava Link 2: After the hail