fossyant
Ride It Like You Stole It!
- Location
- South Manchester
Thunder & Ligtning
- Thread starter cycle_bug
- Start date
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Ah, but you'll be lower down, so ever so slightly safer.Think of us poor buggers on 23mm tyres
jonny jeez
Legendary Member
- Location
- Chislehurst, Kent, UK
Possibly. You hear stories of folk wearing wellies being protected from the effects...an insulator is an insulator at the end of the day and in this instance its wouldn't be there to "stop" the conduction, rather make it look for an alternative target...like a tall chap stood next to you with no shoes on
Donger
Convoi Exceptionnel
- Location
- Quedgeley, Glos.
Ditto. Got caught 9 miles from home in the Alps once and did a dash for it. Felt like an artillery barrage, and I was riding a steel bike. Nowhere to shelter. I now do my mountain rides in the early morning before the heat of the day builds up. Really don't know what I'd do if i was up a mountain when a storm struck.
raleighnut
Legendary Member
- Location
- One of the 'Elite'
You do realise Carbon Fibre is an excellent conductor of electricity.
Remember the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy?
Now substitute
for the first sentence.
Tojo
Über Member
- Location
- Newcastle-upon-Tyne
You do realise Carbon Fibre is an excellent conductor of electricity.
That is why I have put off going to the river today, fly fishing with an 8ft carbon lightening conductor.......
classic33
Leg End Member
Don't stand in the water.That is why I have put off going to the river today, fly fishing with an 8ft carbon lightening conductor.......
Gravity Aided
Legendary Member
- Location
- Land of Lincoln
The reason for this belief is to do with cars. Rubber doesn't insulate you in this case. The automobile acts as a Faraday Cage, allowing the lightning to be conducted around you, following the metal encircling you to ground. A thundercloud has many areas within it of positive and negative charge. These charges connect as the ground sends up streamers of positive charge, hence the feeling of hair standing on end near a lightning strike.
raleighnut
Legendary Member
- Location
- One of the 'Elite'
Gravity Aided
Legendary Member
- Location
- Land of Lincoln
I've also seen it blow holes in people's shoes. Depends on the lightning, and where it hit, but a direct contact would be quite a negative outcome.
subaqua
What’s the point
- Location
- Leytonstone
wow how many TMNs to me !
Globalti
Legendary Member
FWIW if you really are caught out in the open the best advice is to stay out of caves and depressions in the ground because lightning will track along wet ground and may go through you on the way. Trees obviously; I've seen an oak tree that was struck and the lightning boiled the sap and blew the bark off leaving a naked tree. If you crouch down on the ground, try to have only your feet actually on the ground as lightning could also track along, up your arms and down your legs. Don't throw away your bike or ice axe, they make no difference.
My sister got struck in a tent in the bottom of a valley in Andorra; the lightning (or a small branch of it) came down one tent pole, jumped through the frame of a camp bed on which her BF's child was lying, through a big tin of Brillo pads, which were fused into one smoking mass, and then into the other tent pole and to Earth.
My sister got struck in a tent in the bottom of a valley in Andorra; the lightning (or a small branch of it) came down one tent pole, jumped through the frame of a camp bed on which her BF's child was lying, through a big tin of Brillo pads, which were fused into one smoking mass, and then into the other tent pole and to Earth.
Quite. I was just trying to shed a bit more light(ning) on the subject.
