bogydave

One ride I saw a black cloud coming & was fortunate to be near a covered drive thru entrance to a medical facility.
Got under cover just in time,
Guessing That it would’ve hurt a bit.
..Pea size

20 min later ,
all good , sun came out,
except
no fenders & skunk strip of road sludge to finish the ride.

79pmooney

Another good reason to ride with a dorky visor.

If you were out in the open with no shelter, perhaps your best move would be to stop and hunch over, head down, naybe arms around your knees to present the smallest target, conserve heat and leave only your back and shoulders exposed to the hail. Might come away quite bruised. (Here in the northwest we have had car body damaging hailstorms. Think gangsters beating you with plastic bats.) In this position, you live and suffer no long term injuries.

I've ridden through hail, but never hail of any size.

Ben

Hypno Toad

As much as I ride, I've only been caught in hail once [/knocking on wood] - back when I was a kid riding home from school we got pea-sized hail, it took a minute or two of getting peppered with small stones before I got to bridge for cover. Luckily it was a fast moving storm and I got back on my way quickly without damage to me or bike.

I do a lot of gravel grinders in rural areas, these are unsupported rides, so you're really out on your own. Thinking about some of these roads, you can see for miles of nothing but farm fields... no cover to be found. My plan on these rides: just keep riding if it's pea-sized; if it gets larger look for shelter at a farm or a tree line.

ksryder

Yeah in my corner of the midwest the conditions that produce hail are awfully similar to the conditions that produce tornadoes and we are all generally very aware of that (mostly in the spring/early summer) and probably aren't going to be out riding.

That being said, I've been known to try to squeeze in a quick ride before the storm arrives, and sometimes a freak storm blows through that you weren't expecting.

Although golfball and softball-sized hail aren't unheard of, chances are it's going to be pea-sized. I.e., unpleasant but survivable. Usually there will be house or outbuilding of some sort close enough to get to and take shelter, but I guess if it's bad enough I'd try to mitigate damage and just huddle in a ditch, covering my neck and face with my arms as best I could.

The bigger concern for me is lightning, so I'm very unlikely to be riding when it's thunderstorm weather. Which is usually adequately predicted by the weather service, and again, around here if it's raining then 90% of the time it means it's a thunderstorm.

bogydave

Good point !!
never thought about
Lightning
Metal frame....wheels...thin tires
...
Lightening rod stuff


Lightning’s rare in my ride areas
of AK & SoCal
But does happen
&

JanMM

Hail, no! I've been lucky.

BlazingPedals

Last summer I was riding home after a club ride and the sky ahead got really dark. I was near a highway underpass as it started sprinkling, so I pulled in, 'just in case.' Sure enough, all hell broke loose. There was no dry spot under the bridge; wind took care of that detail. Small hail, lots of rain. I had to climb up to get in between the I-beams to stay sort of dry. After 15 minutes of that, which seemed like a lot longer, the rain tapered off and I was able to ride the rest of the way home in a light rain.

pdlamb

Caught in hail? Wince! and find whatever cover you can.


The MTB-style visor protects your face, a bit, but pea size hail will find the vents in your helmet.

jwh20

From experience I can tell you that pea-sized hail stings and leaves little welts on your back. Larger than that and I'm sure it's a lot worse. I've seen golfball-sized hail punch through a shingled roof so I expect getting hit in the head could be fatal. The best approach is to get under whatever cover you can and wait it out!

canklecat

Twice in one spring in 2016. I always check the weather and knew there was a risk of t-storms with strong wind and hail. But that's pretty much the daily forecast for weeks at a time, so if we take it too seriously we'd never ride at all.

First time I saw it coming ahead of me -- big, open prairie, plenty of visibility. I ducked under an overpass, along with a dozen motorists who saw it coming too. Just sat and waited it out. Golf ball sized hail, definitely not something to mess with.

Second time was a few weeks later, same general area. This time it sneaked up on me from behind. First warning was a serious gust of tailwind. Soon as I felt that I knew I had only a couple of minutes to find cover.

I ducked under the nearest awning at an abandoned gas station. That blocked most of the heavy rain. Then I saw vehicles passing with fresh hail damage, and saw lightning strikes a couple of miles away. The wind gusts got really fierce. I didn't trust that metal awning so I left the bike and jogged about 50 yards to duck into a niche about shoulder-width between two brick and concrete buildings. It was a risk either way.

Fortunately the storm settled very quickly and by the time it reached me the hail went from golf ball to pea sized, and the wind wasn't quite strong enough to tear up anything.

Since then I'm pretty careful to check the weather conditions often, including during a ride, and choose routes I'm familiar with that offer some cover within a few hundred yards of any given location. One of my favorite interval workout routes is along a highway access road so there are plenty of places to duck under an overpass.

bogydave

I never thought I’d be riding a bike
far enough from home to have
to check weather reports.

But it is kind of a fun thing
to have to do .
Ride far enough to experience
weather changes

A proud banner to wear

rumrunn6

got caught out in thunder, lighting & torrential downpours but not hail. one time a growling low hotspot floated slowly over me threatening to strike any moment. I thought that was the end

Digital Gee

Hasn't happened to me yet, but if it does, I'd be tempted to "hail" a cab!

GlennR

Once on a motorcycle. My arms were bleeding and it looked like i rode through a plate glass window.

zonatandem

Several years ago on the last leg of a 500 mile tour from the Grand Canyon to Mexico got caught in the middle of nowhere in Sept, in the Sonoran desert (read 20 some miles from any habitation/shelter).
Black cloud and instant huge hail. Stopped and quickly donned our raingear packed on our tandem.
By the time we got our stuff on, it quit,
Temperature dropped 20 degrees and stoker had black and blue marks from the hail hits. Kept on the raingear for warmth till the end of the day's ride in Tucson.
Ah, memories!
Pedal on TWOgether!
Rudy and Kay/zonatandem

kaos joe

Many times. 3 memorable ones, once on bikes, once in a boat, once wearing boots.

First one when I was about 6. My father & I ducked into a deli. I remember gusts of wind strong enough to move the bikes which were lying on their sides on the sidewalk outside.

Age around 12, myself and my cousin Frankie fishing in a rowboat a good 3/4 mile offshore on Lake Winnipesaukee, NH. Powerful winds. The hail stung but still a hell of a lot of fun if you're 12.

Most recently hiking this past August in Gallatin N.F. 3 of us MPBC riders were off trail, making our way along the south shore of Maryott Lake. We arrived at a snow/ice field about 75 yards wide, leading from the shore up the steep slope about the same distance. This was at 10,400 feet, no trees, maybe 40 degrees F. We weren't planning on any real high altitude stuff so we left the microspikes at home. One of us is more experienced with ice and felt we could cross, but a slip would have resulted in a high speed slide right into the drink. I'm a poor swimmer and was having none of it, and started up the scree to go up and around. Close to the top, we realized the slope was unstable and was starting to move and rumble a bit under our feet. There was a school bus sized rock outcrop near the top we made our way to, and we were pulling ourselves along it by hand. At that moment, with a mighty crack of thunder, the hail hit, driven by a from-nowhere blast of wind. The sound of the hail/sleet/snow/rain hitting our rain gear was so loud we had to shout to one another. 2 of us got to the top but the last guy, (another Frankie) found the scree so loosened up he was slowly going downhill. I got my hand jammed good and tight in a crack in the school bus rock, and reached down so Frank could climb up my hiking pole and then my arm to reach the (relative) safety of the rock. Up and around, and down.

15 minutes later we were eating lunch in bright sunshine, remarking that a cinematographer would have paid the special effects people a lot of money to re-create that interesting 2 minutes. Good times.

TimothyH

Hail it typically bundled with tornadoes here in the south. Anywhere near civilization means there will be tornado sirens and so likely some warning. Its a pretty big deal when the sirens go off. People usually pay attention.

Up in the hills and hollers one could get caught out. I've not.


-Tim-

CliffordK

Most of the hail around here is more like rice size. I think I've been hit a few times, but it must have knocked out the memory as I don't remember any particular episodes.

Pea sized is more rare. I know we were hit by that backpacking a while ago, and I think we just ducked under some trees.

I missed the golf ball and baseball hail in Missouri. It wasn't uncommon to hear the tornado sirens while out on a ride and not quite be sure what I'd do if there was actually a tornado.

Rollfast

Shout another curse word and that of my savior. Just like lightning, I'm sorta monotonous like that.

B. Carfree

I've ridden in hail plenty of times. On the wet side of Oregon, if you don't ride in the rain you don't ride, and sometimes the rain turns to hail. Luckily, as CliffordK said, our hail is usually small stuff.

Machka 

Got caught in a massive hailstorm halfway through a 200K randonnee ... the person cycling with me and I hid in the trees along side the road ...

qcpmsame 

Plenty of times on jobsites, several times on rides by myself in the spring and summer months. Our club was out on a ride a few years back when a severe storm came through quickly, the riders got caught out in a rural area with no where to duck into. Several had some colorful bruises to show for the efforts. I was outside working at the time it hit, got pelted pretty good by the hail stones.

The NAS Whiting Field inventory took a big hit from that storm, out of ~150 TH-57 helos, and over 250 T-34C trainers, 3 helos and about 20 fixed wing were spared damage that grounded them. We were working on the South Field hangar and at OLF Choctaw when this happened, I got in to see the stacked aircraft awaiting repairs the next day. The training cycles were ruined for about two months afterwards. Fort Rucker gathered up every rotor blade and canopy for the TH-57/58 variants they had in their stores, and trucked them in, and the Bell Helicopter support folks went into overdrive getting blades out for the three squadrons. T-34 damage could be repaired in house, plenty of canopies had to be trucked in for these fixed wing trainers.

Really shocking how much damage these storms can cause. A large number of automobiles were heavily damaged, private vehicles, and on Car Dealer lots. There were some good prices on hail damaged/repaired "New" cars for a couple of months afterwards.

Bill

Machka 

Yep ... we had a storm with golf ball sized hail come through Winnipeg when I lived there many, many years ago. I watched from the window as it pelted down, and when it subsided, I watched as a fellow resident in our apartment complex ran out to his car, and reached in through the hatch window to extract something. The hail had smashed the window completely. While I was thinking how bad that was, it suddenly occurred to me, that the windshield of our car was facing that direction. We went out, and sure enough, it was all smashed ... and the whole car looked like a golf ball. It was totalled ... written off.

indyfabz

Got caught in some hail while descending from nearly 8,000' in Montana. Kept riding because I wanted down from there and the stones were small.


Two years ago I was again riding in Montana when a storm struck. There was a historic battlefield sight that I was able to reach just before the hail began. Totally lucked out in terms of timing as there were no other structures or other cover around.


The scariest for me was in the Black Hills at the end of a very hard day on tour. I was in my tent at a campground. Some of the stones were close to golf ball size. I was convinced that my tent would be destroyed. I think the thing that saved it is that I was under a small tree. The tent still got pelted, but had some protection. Solidified my faith in Big Agnes tents.

indyfabz

When I was bike touring in the Black Hills I saw several homes with metal shelters over driveways and several auto repair places advertising that they repair hail damage. Was told that tourists' rental cars are sometimes heavily damaged by hail.