This item caught our eye today:
NPR followed up on a tweet from the National Weather Service, which reminded its Twitter followers that 80% of the victims of lightning strikes are men. Among the potential reasons why this is so, according to the experts that NPR spoke with:
Men, said [NOAA's] Buchanan, don't want to be seen as "wimps." This theory, she said, was backed up by talking to the Boy Scouts who said no one wants to be the one to say it's time to go inside.Men, said Buchanan, don't want to be seen as "wimps." This theory, she said, was backed up by talking to the Boy Scouts who said no one wants to be the one to say it's time to go inside.
That sounds about right, and it brings to mind Monday night at last year's Paris-Brest-Paris, when those of us who had started riding on Monday morning were caught in the midst of an extreme electrical storm. With flashes and thunder happening simultaneously, we were riding drenched to the skin in a downpour on top of (often) steel bicycles ... sitting ducks (or sitting lightning rods) for getting fried by a lightning strike.
Did we consider stopping? Not really. We cowered in a doorway for a few minutes, but then kept riding. Here's my video from that moment:
We did pass a few groups of riders who sought cover, but most of kept pressed on through the pouring rain. Nobody was struck by lightning that night, but based on NPR's reporting, it wouldn't have been surprising if somebody had been, and it would almost certainly have been a guy who was hit.
So ...
What are the worst conditions you've ridden through? When did weather (or some other danger factor) convince you to stop riding? Tell us in the comments below.
