When I left the house this morning to run a few errands before my afternoon bike ride, I said to myself "what does 50% chance of severe thunderstorms mean?" (thinking of the weather report I heard in the morning). Well, got me a new rain jacket for biking in the rain, and a cyclometer. Got to Vienna - was getting ready to head towards Leesburg, another biker came up and said "ready for the rain?" I chirped back "absolutely". So, I head out - it was hot and humid as hell. About 90 degrees, minimal breeze. I finally got into my good funk and was cruizing like a banshee. Eventually made it to Leesburg without one drop of rain - it had been threatening. Heard distant thunder rumbles. At Leesburg was my 40 mile 1/2 way point (Vienna to Leesburg is 20 miles each way), I heard a thunderboom and the sky started to turn a wicked bruised color.

About a mile into the ride back - huge pancake sized rain drops were hitting the asphalt - it was about to dump hard core Rhinos and Elephants (not cats n dogs). I was prepared though (even if I wasn't wearing my fancy new rain jacket) - it was hot as hell, I was already drenched with sweat. The rain felt great - refreshing. My cell phone, keys, wallet were in a ziplock bag in my mini-tote. I was debating taking off my jersey and just get rained on - I couldn't figure where to put it so I decided to just wear it all sloppy heavy wet.

It was dumping rain hard. I could not see a damn thing. Worse thing was that my tiny thin tires were slippery as hell. I skidded/slipped 3 times (almost wiping completely out) while approaching an intersection. One time I was slipping so fast and what not..I unclipped my shoe out of my pedal..and had to manually stop my self via Fred Flinstone style tactics. I wonder if there were sparks coming from the steel cleat on the bottom of my shoe and the aslphalt.

The great thing about the ride back in this downpour was the smiles on all the hard core bikers' faces. I was smiling too. The lightning was a little intense - I was worried about getting struck. I was thinking, crap - did I update my will? I wish I cleaned out my car before it was found after I died from a lightningstrike. Then I got paranoid, my new bike frame is 1/2 carbon fiber and aluminum - a huge conductor. The rain was so heavy that there was minor flooding on some of the cross roads and low areas - this one intersection between Reston and Vienna, I biked through an intersection that had two feet of water.

Anyhoo, to sum it up - the last 20 miles of my bike trip back was in a total rain downpour. I get back to Vienna, put soaked bike & gear in car, change my clothes at the community center, begin to back out of parking lot - Rain stops. Typical.

Came home, made a Burrito with a sundried tomato and basil soft flour tortilla, black beans, scallions, left over grilled chicken, and soy cheddar "cheese" topped with some homemade salsa (recipe I will produce tomorrow). Overall, great weekend.

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