Crazy weather, crazy person
Posted on | July 28, 2008 |
Note to self: Try not to so poorly misread a storm ever again.
Thursday night I headed out to ride the dams. I noticed dark clouds in the north, but figured if I cut out part of the ride (not going north for some extra miles before hitting the dams) and headed directly west then south I would miss the storm. Can you guess where this is going? Yeah, I was totally wrong. All was well as I went over Bingham Hill and headed south to the first dam. Within a mile of turning south, a stiff crosswind was hitting me from the west. I looked over to see a wall of heavy rain sweeping down out of Rist Canyon. But I could still see blue sky ahead, so I soldiered on. Another half mile, and I felt the beginnings of rain.
I began to weigh my options. Turn around with the best option being to go back over Bingham? But then I still didn’t have any decent shelter options since I was 7+ miles from home. Or keep going and hope to at least make it to the top of the first dam where there was a bathroom? I decided to continue on. It just kept getting worse. By the time I reached the bottom of the first dam climb, the clouds were on top of me, and the rain was getting more intense. Thunder was overhead, and I could see lightening striking ahead of me.
I’ve never climbed that dam so fast in my life. It went something like, climb, climb, oh god, climb, oh god, oh god, faster, faster, come on, come on, oh god, climb, climb, bathroom!, yes!. The entrance to the shelter area was down the road, so I opted to hop off, throw my bike on my shoulder and scramble down the grassy embankment to the bathroom shelter.
I crowded into the shelter with a guy with the same idea. Not two seconds later it started to hail.
I had time, so I chatted with the guy. It slowly dawned on me that the guy might be somewhere in the range of friendly crazy to certifiable crazy. Among the stories he told me in our (roughly) half hour of chatting:
- He rode in the Tour. Yes, THE TOUR. He crashed, though, and thirty riders rode over him. He’s not sure how he survived.
- He liked to train with hard tires so he didn’t have to worry about flats. He was an engineer and basically invented these tires. He doesn’t have the patent, though.
- The mafia was after him when he lived in Utah. So, he said goodbye to his lovely wife and house and headed to Argentina.
- He was in Argentina only two days before la policia woke him to haul him to jail for second degree murder. Apparently, he was set up by his brother and a friend. Luckily, he had another friend who managed to get him out of the country.
Soooo…this is where I started to wonder if I should worry about this friendly crazy person. I mean, I can appreciate a “story teller,” but now I was thinking I should get out of dodge. The bulk of the storm had passed to the southeast, so I dumped the water off my seat and made preparations to leave. I said my goodbyes and headed down the wet road.
By the time I got home, I was soaked, water was sloshing around in my shoes, and I was covered in dirt and grit, but I was home, and I had quite a story. I also realized my threshold was higher than assumed. I pushed it up that climb way harder than I ever do, and didn’t feel that bad. Sure, adrenaline probably had something to do with it, but it makes me think I need to push my limits more.
Wish I could have got my shoes dry before my ride the following morning though.
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