Same here today - the weather is changing every few minutes, from one extreme to another. I looked at the forecast and saw what it was going to be like so when I nipped out on my bike I decided to keep it short, keep it local.
The sun was shining brightly when I set off, so I was wearing sunglasses.
I did a couple of small ramps and headed off for a more significant hill. The conditions were already changing by the time I got to the foot of the hill so I thought twice about going up there. It isn't a massive hill but I would still end up in an exposed position 120 metres above the valley bottom. I decided to press on - I could get off the hill pretty quickly if I needed to.
By the time I got to the summit, the sunshine had gone, dark clouds were rapidly scudding above me. I looked across to the hillside above Bacup, only about 8 kms away - there was torrential rain falling over there. As some say in these parts... (another quaint English saying for
@12boy to add to his growing list!)... it was definitely "
lookin' a bit black o'er back o' Bill's mother's"!
Ok, no messing about - do my descent and head for home. Hang on, it had got so dark that I could no longer see through sunglasses! I put those in my bag and plunged down the hill.
A few spots of rain were falling as I got back into town but then I remembered that I wanted to pick up a Metro so I sprinted up the little climb to the station and collected one (beat you this time, phantom paper pilferer - muhaha!). I rolled back down to the main road and...
FLASH!!,
KERBANG!! A huge thunderstorm had brewed up and was dumping on the town centre. Blow that for a game of soldiers - I dived across the road and took shelter in the bus station along with several other
drowned rats socially distanced citizens.
This picture doesn't really capture just how much rain was falling, but it gives you an idea...
View attachment 588089
There is a huge hill in the distance on the right but you can barely see it.
I waited about 10 minutes and the rain eased. It didn't stop altogether but I thought I'd go before it got worse again.
I got home at 2 pm and it was so dark in my kitchen that I had to put a light on to see what I was doing. 15 minutes later the sun was back out and I couldn't even see that the light was on!
We have had several cycles of sun/rain/thunder since then. I need to go to the shops but I'm waiting until this evening, by which time this should have blown over. In fact, we are supposed to get continuous sunshine and no rain from 7 pm to sunset, so I think I will do another little ride then.
Oh, I liked the new position on my bike - I will keep it like this. I'll see what it feels like when I start doing my longer, hillier rides again, which will be as soon as we start getting days with 4 or 5 hour spells of sunshine, no rain, and low wind speeds.
