Before we begin, lets get one thing straight. I don’t mind riding my bike in the rain. Most of the time I oddly enjoy it. After all, I did spend the greater part of the last 5 years pedaling away in one big Belgian rainstorm. What I don’t like about the rain is riding my bike in it here in Phoenix. Allow me to explain….

Phoenix has traffic. Lots of it. I estimate it to be somewhere between 7 and 8 billion cars and that doesn’t even include SUV’s……a breed reproducing at a faster rate than even rabbits are rumored to be capable of. Now, training on a good day in Phoenix involves sharing the road with cars. Anybody who’s ever trained here knows that. I don’t mind this because I really have no choice but to try and peacefully co-exist with my much larger 4-wheeled friends. Now, in contrary and for the record, I hate garbage trucks, city buses and cement trucks. Write that down. I believe these vehicles have some sort of predisposed manufacturers programming that forces the steering to pull towards the white line of my bike lane. That white line also happens to be my comfort line…..Now that we’ve discussed Phoenix’s heavy flow of traffic we can now get into what that flow of traffic is like in the rain.

One word: brothel

Phoenicians don’t often see rain to start with so when they do they’re not quite sure of how to deal with it when behind the wheel of an automobile. Combine this with the already existing danger of cycling and training on public streets and it makes for one nerve racking day of training. A nerve racking day of training…….well, kind of like today.

When I left at 6:00 am to go and train the sky was clear with only a few clouds to the south. Damn….it would be a hot one as I headed out in an attempt to get 5 hours in before the sun punched my ticket.

As I pedaled north up towards Cave Creek and Carefree I noticed a few clouds heading towards the sun. When this sometimes happens on a hot desert day I tend to get excited because it allows me to not bake and possibly train longer. I encourage and cheer the cloud on just as you would a horse at the track……”Ah, yeah thats the stuff, there you go Mr. Cloud, come on now, you can do it, move left, now hit out, go, go, damnit go you stupid cloud….”

On this particular day he went, and so did a bunch of his friends. Before I knew it the clouds had invited along their friend Mr. Rain and his two step sons Lightning and Thunder, and they were both creeping up behind me. Now, in most cases this isn’t a problem. But you see, in Phoenix when it rains its a thunderstorm and since the streets weren’t build with consideration to handling large amounts of rain, they always flood. So, when I turned around and decided to head back into town I was confronted by a wall of black clouds illuminated with lightening and serenaded by the rumbles of thunder. It was going to be a wet one.

“Son of a b$%@&”, I thought.

Why did I think this…….well….. THUNDERSTORM + PHOENIX x BICYCLE = SON OF A B$%@& ………that’s why.

As I hit the outskirts of town, the rain decided to do it’s thing. Before long I found myself riding tempo on the sidewalk because the busy streets were all flooded. A few miles later I found myself riding in the middle of the flooded street, cautiously looking back for cars, because the sidewalk was now so flooded I couldn’t actually see if there was a sidewalk there. In the middle of this freakish downpour, I stopped for a light and I wondered what all the motorists were thinking when they saw me? Crazy bastard? Idiot? Glad I’m not him? Lightning struck a few blocks over and the light turned green……Eureka! No more thinking time, it’s tempo time.

After about 30 minutes of riding tempo in 1 foot deep water I threw in the towel. It made no sense to fight the tides anymore so I just relaxed cast my sail and drifted home. It wasn’t humanly possible to get any more wet. In the remaining 30 minute ride home I saw many cars stuck in the flood waters of the local washes. I saw two cars stuck in the same wash…..so I decided to hit it with some speed. I fishtailed, slowed down, wobbled and barely made it through the shin deep water. Good thing I made it, the motorists would have enjoyed watching me take a digger in that one…..

I finally made it home and was happy to climb off my mess of a bike. In all my years of riding, today may have been one of the worst rain storms I’ve ever ridden through. The only weather I can think of that was worse was the German Meinfranken Tour I did in 2001. The commassare neutralized the race amidst a ferocious and painful hail storm. I’ve never heard European racers scream so loud and willingly dive off the road and head for cover in the middle of a race. Meanwhile, with the field in shambles and hidding in the bushes, all six of the Rabobank Espoirs hit the front and drove it…….crazy bastards.

Alright, I’ve got to go tend to my bike before it rusts over.

Cheers.

Categories: Daily Jibber Jabber.