Biking In The Rain

Adventures With Staying Centered in Uncertain Times.

Photo by ORNELLA BINNI on Unsplash

Lately I’ve been doing quite a bit of cycling in the outrageously green Indiana landscape. Monroe County Indiana is where the glaciers stopped in this part of the country, and so cycling here comes with lots of serious hill climbing and exhilarating glides into lush green valleys. It helps to have a bike with low gears that can handle steep inclines and good brakes for the fast downhills. I got a new bike for my birthday this year and I have to admit, I’ve been totally in touch with my inner 6-year-old who is completely in love with my new bike that is lighter and much better suited to hill riding…and ok, its a really pretty color. I’ve haven’t added 1960’s handlebar streamers and a bell just yet, but I’ve thought about it.

I remember last summer biking down a lonely country road, when what had been clear blue skies suddenly when dark, the winds picked up and the temperature quickly dropped at least 10 degrees, a sure indicator a storm front was coming in. I was miles from home and this particular stretch of road was mostly rolling farmland with very few houses. Then the sky let loose a downpour of rain that the crazy hard winds were blowing nearly sideways. I was finding it hard to keep biking, and looking for a barn or tree to try to wait it out when a couple and their dog in a SUV stopped. A young woman rolled down her window and shouted over the sound of the storm, “We’re cyclers too, can we give you a ride home?” Soaked to the bone and teeth chattering I shouted back, “Oh My Gawd you’re angels! Yes, I’d love a ride.” We stowed my bike in the back of their car and they gave me a towel ( they had just been swimming at a local lake) and I joined their happy shaggy dog in the back seat. We creeped down the country roads amid torrents of water, windshield wipers swishing back and forth at top speed until we reached my home. I apologized for soaking their back seat and expressed my deep gratitude that they were willing to rescue a waterlogged stranger on the road. They smiled and said that they had both been caught cycling in a downpour and it was not a problem to take me the ten miles or so home.

In this part of the country there are times when you can see a summer storm coming from a long distance off. But there are other times they can come up fast and with unexpected strength and intensity. The Weather Channel helps with all its fancy radar and tools to predict movements of air, rain, heat and wind. But weather has become more unpredictable in the past years, and sometimes storms come up and we just have to readjust our way home or find shelter and remember to help others when they get caught in the downpour.