What about lightning and cyclists??

[Sandy]

Ballistic Bullet Bob aka Spectrum Bob was talking to me about a ride he did yesterday. About 15 miles out, a thunderstorm arrived and soaked him thoroughly. I wondered if a cyclist has ever been hit with lightning. Bikes have rubber tires, so maybe that would make a lightning strike unlikely.

So, has anyone ever heard of a cyclist being hit by lightning?

Sizzling Shaking Smoking Smoldering Suddenly Silent Sandy

[ada@prorider.or]

Ballistic Bullet Bob aka Spectrum Bob was talking to me about a ride he did yesterday. About 15 miles out, a thunderstorm arrived and soaked him thoroughly. I wondered if a cyclist has ever been hit with lightning? Bikes have rubber tires, so maybe that would make a lightning strike unlikely.




So, has anyone ever heard of a cyclist being hit by lightning?



Sizzling Shaking Smoking Smoldering Suddenly Silent Sandy

yes and died



i wrote in lightning
why
simply i still have to rode home 50 km straight road
no phone that time also there where no shelter
was not a nice experiance was also soaking wet
when i cruised in at home 22.00
as get here 17.00 dark here in winter
you can have a feeling how the people at home was worried
but next morning at 05.00 on the bike again

[Needs Help]

Bikes have rubber tires, so maybe that would make a lightning strike unlikely.That belief is a common fallacy--I once thought so too. It probably springs from the fact that cars have tires, and a car offers protection from lighting. However, the fact that a car offers protection from lighting has to do with the fact that the lighting will conduct through the metal surrounding you and then arc past the tires and discharge into the ground--leaving you untouched. I don't even think the current necessarily bypasses the tires--just because something is a poor conductor of electricity doesn't mean that when hit with enough Volts it won't conduct enough electricity to kill you. Wood is a poor conductor of electricity, but lighting hits trees all the time, and taking refuge near them in a lightning storm is not considered safe.

So, if you are on a bike and a bolt of lightening hits you, you are dead--even if you are using 28mm tires. :)

Perhaps an electrical engineer can give more expert testimony.

[Sandy]

I believe that Keno is a genius electrical engineer. He would know, as he knows almost everything. Besides, at the speed that he presently rides, he is almost like lightning himself. :)

As a really, really, really pathetc student in undergraduate school, I remember seeing a picture of a large metal sphere. It was stated that you could be in the inside of the metal sphere and have a great electrical charge pass through the metal sphere and you would be perfectly safe as the charge resides on the outside surface of the sphere.

I tested the hypothesis a couple of weeks ago. I made a mistake (actually not a mistake) and told my old freiend Kevan that the charge resided on the inside of the sphere, so he climbed up and held on tightly to the outside surface. Zapped and gone forever, I think!! :)

Sandy

[vaxn8r]

So, if you are on a bike and a bolt of lightening hits you, you are dead--even if you are using 28mm tires. :)


Well, I'm not an electrical engineer....but lightning strike and death is not a 1:1 correlation. Maybe close but there are survivors.

[PaulE]

lightning has, it doesn't matter what the conductive properties are of the item it strikes. Ben Franklin's silk kite string, wood trees, anything - if lightning strikes it, it's done. I don't recommend this, but if you've ever touched a wire from the distributor cap to the spark plug on an engine that's running, you'll get yourself a nice little shock, even though the wire is insulated with rubber, and the spark plug completes a circuit. The volts in that wire are looking for the easiest path to ground and they will go through the rubber insulation to get to it if they have to.

[PaulE]

I once worked with a guy who had an uncle who was struck by lightning while golfing. The guy survived, no permanent damage, although he did lose the gold chain around his neck!

[Ginger]

I have a friend who has been struck by lightning twice and survived.
Last year at a charity 24 hour event that was closed down at 1am because of storms, we decided it was too late to drive home so we stayed in the tent. Sometime in the middle of one of the storm fronts that rolled through before dawn we both woke to a "buzzing" sort of like the sound of high voltage lines when you're right underneath them (we were out on a football field) I looked over at Stormy and her braids were sticking up. She looked at me and my hair was sticking up. Both of us thought "Oh SH#% Here comes number three"
Whatever it was dissipated...but the next day our buddy in the next tent over said: Did you guys get woken up by some sort of an electrical "buzz?"

That said, I've been out on my mountain bike and had multiple lightning strikes within 50 foot of us on the trail. It had been overcast all day, and we didn't think it would actually storm on us...so we went out anyhow. Got out on the trail and all heck broke loose. I was with a newbie and he asked that same question: Are the tires enough to insulate us from the lightning? "Sure...just keep pedalling!" We had a great ride...but I was upset with myself for letting us ride in that weather.

Of course, once we got to shelter I told him that he should never intentionally ride in a storm like that no matter how much fun it was because the tires really aren't enough insulation to protect you from that sort of voltage...

Any time I ride into a thunderstorm I seek shelter if possible until the front blows through.

[Ray]

So, if you are on a bike and a bolt of lightening hits you, you are dead--even if you are using 28mm tires. :)
Yet another selling point for 650b x 38 tires :cool:

-Ray

[bcm119]

Needs help is right, the rubber tires thing is a myth. Lightning is highly unpredictable and will strike pretty much anything, so if you're on your bike and you've got a storm overhead, duck inside the nearest kwik-e-mart. Or move to oregon, we don't get bad t-storms out here :(

[Peter]

Lightning is looking for the least resistance to ground and it does not discriminate. It can also strike as far as 10 miles from it's point of origin. I've seen photos of cars that have been struck and I've read news reports of mountain bikers in high, exposed areas of land get killed as well.

What amazes me is pro road races are NOT halted due to thunderstorms. A perfect example is one stage of this year's Tour de Georgia.

In a thunderstorm, seek shelter immediately.

[H.Frank Beshear]

One of our club members was hit on an overpass several years ago. We had a small brass plate made and mounted on the retaining wall. He survived and still rides. We even had a commemorative ride for a couple years, He didn't show up for those :D . Frank

[BumbleBeeDave]

. . . in high school seemed to have some obsession with making sure all of us learned that it was the hollow metal shell that protects you in a car, not the rubber tires as insulation. He had an incredibly elaborate experimental contraption that he demonstrated to every class that included a Van Der Graaf generator, spitting sparks, a metal sphere--the works. Not sure if he was once hit himself, or what. He WAS a little odd, though . . . (Mr. Roper, please forgive me if you see this!)

BBDave

[Bradford]

. . . in high school seemed to have some obsession with making sure all of us learned that it was the hollow metal shell that protects you in a car, not the rubber tires as insulation. He had an incredibly elaborate experimental contraption that he demonstrated to every class that included a Van Der Graaf generator, spitting sparks, a metal sphere--the works. Not sure if he was once hit himself, or what. He WAS a little odd, though . . . (Mr. Roper, please forgive me if you see this!)

BBDave

According to my High School Physics teacher, the Bee Man is right. Even a metal bee hive would do it.

He showed us a movie of a scientist sitting in a big wire cage (think of a chicken wire ball about 15 feet in diameter) with other scientist shooting similated lightning at him. (At least I think I remember seeing the movie, at the very least it was a story he told us; hey, high school was a long time ago). But I clearly remember the part that rubber tires stuff is bunk and the metal sphere stuff is the real reason.

[Elefantino]

We get it a lot. Last year I was riding at lunch when a storm came rolling in and caught me about 5 miles from the office. Strikes everywhere. Now I am riding on 62.5 cm of Serotta steel, which makes me just this side of a lightning rod. I pulled into a strip mall, called my assistant to come get me.

It's a no-brainer.

[BumbleBeeDave]

. . . they have an electrical science show with lightning generators 20 feet tall. The operator sits in a metal cage right in the middle of all of this. My daughter and I chanced to wander in the out doors on our first visit while he was building up the giant charge in the generators for the finale of his show. We didn't know that, though, and wandered into this big dark room where we could tell there was a crowd of people standing around, but we couldn't tell what for. We stood there for about 15 seconds, figuring something was going to happen and wondering what it was. Then . . .

:eek: :eek: :eek: BAM!! CRACK!! BOOM!! :eek: :eek: :eek:

HOLY SH*T!!! Imagine being in the absolute middle of a lightning storm, 30 feet away from the bolts and the thunder, and that's what it literally was. Scared the living whee out of us! But right smack dab in the middle of it all sat this operator guy in the metal cage with lightning bolts rippling over the cage and he was calm as a cold cucumber . . . Talk about brass balls! (Or some other NON-conductive material!)

BBDave

[Sandy]

I was just wondering. Have any of your bumblebee friends ever been hit by lightning? Did that make them into lightning bugs?? :)

Bugs Bunny

[Bradford]

. Imagine being in the absolute middle of a lightning storm, 30 feet away from the bolts and the thunder

BBDave

Back in my mispent youth, I was going into the clubhouse of the golf course where I worked with a friend of mine behind me. I had just opend the door, but not stepped in yet, when I saw a blinding flash of light behind me accompanied by the loudest sound I had ever heard. I dove through the open door, thinking as I was falling how upsetting it was that my friend behind be had just been struck by lightning. That lasted a second or so, because just after I hit the ground I felt him land on top of me. He dove into the door too.

The lighting struck a tree about 100 feet away. Until you experience it, you can not possibly imagine how bright and loud a lightning strike is. It gives me the willies just to think about it.

[RABikes2]

As Elefantino stated, in Florida you can be riding and a storm will roll in quickly. We've been out in the country, no man's land, on many rides, and been caught in sudden thunder, lightning, and rain storms. There is NO place to go since the only things around are trees, bushes, and the road. Very scary. :eek:

It became even scarier in my college meteorology class a few years ago, we had to write our 1,000 word Gordon paper on any subject/story as long as it included weather. I did my paper on a 200 mile ride we did that included one of these summer lightning storms. The teacher (who is a local TV meteorologist) came over to me after returning the graded papers (I got an A) and asked if I had embellished on the details. I said "no, that's how the ride happened." She then proceeded to detail how totally dangerous it was what we had done. She ended her talk with, "if that ever happens again and there is absolutely no safe place for you to go, get the h*ll off your bike and crouch/lay down on the side of the road in the lowest spot you can find until the storm passes."

Good advice.

[Sandy]

Heck, Kevan does that on sunny days. :)


Sometimes Showers Sometimes Sunny,

Sunshine Sandy

[cdmc]

The cage you are all talking about is a Faraday Cage and is used to demonstrate why you are safe inside a car or plane during a thunder storm.