busygizmo

Has the weather ever been nice?

Just curious. Rode 2 years ago and it was cold and wet at the final climb/descent.

Last year sounded awful and there is an 80% chance of rain for tomorrow.

Jeff Wills

More like 100%. I just got back- my wife and I bailed out after riding 15 miles uphill, in the rain. That wasn't so bad, but I knew that the descent would be icky. Sure enough, I started getting chilled on some of the steeper hills. I wasn't really dressed for the wet, though.

IIRC, STP used to be scheduled on this weekend. They moved it after being rained on several years in a row.

KRhea

Two comments, one, everyone knew the chance of rain was at least 80% yesterday...why then didn't you dress for the wet conditions?

Secondly, the National Parks dept dictates that the ride is this weekend in an effort to avoid the large volume of vehicle traffic as the height of vacation season builds thus making the roads a bit safer for the mass of riders.

I've ridden this ride for years and as most riders know, you have to watch the Toutle as well as the Johnston Ridge weather forecast like a hawk so you don't get a nasty weather surprise.
This past Wednesday I cancelled my plans to ride the event when the chance of rain went to 40% and the high for the day was to be under 50degrees. Thursday it went to 60% and then yesterday the forecast said almost 100% chance of cold, rainy weather. That's not a ride to try if you're not properly prepared for tough weather conditions, serious climbing or god forbid, the combination of the two.

I hope all riders got back in OK.

KRhea

Jeff Wills

'Cause I'm stupid. I looked at the weather radar this morning, and it looked like there was a back edge to the rain. I thought it'd drizzle for an hour and stop. I think I was seeing the limit of the radar coverage, not the rain. Duhhh...

Oh, well- it was a pretty ride nevertheless.

Shifty

I ride this with a small group (4 - 5 riders) in August after two years being rained out on the event. I love the ride, August is much nicer time to do it. Too bad they can't move the event.

Kip

It is a spectacular ride when the weather cooperates, but can be miserable, indeed dangerous on just about any given day. FWIW Mt St Helens is not a National Park. It is under the jurisdiction of the USFS.

deeg_quest

I signed up for this years ride about 7 days out when the long range for cast was for 70 deg and partly cloudy. As the day approach every forecast got worse. I stupidly was unprepared for all the rain and cold. So I ended up only doing to 33 mile ride. This was a huge disappointment. But turning back was the right decision, because I was too cold for a 2 hour decent soaking wet and would have reach a hypothermic point.
However, I'm now more determined to complete this ride in the future and I won't take clothing preparation so carelessly for rides.

Jasper Storm

I had not planned on doing the TdB due to the weather, but I kept checking the dopplar radar from 4:00 am on Sat. morning and decided to give it a go, as it appeared that there would be only brief, passing showers. Wrong.

I paid the full $75 to get a wet workout for (hopefully) this year's RAMROD. Spent a lot of time cursing my inability to dial in the indexing of my rear derailleur. I didn't see any repair stands at any of the rest stops. I saw a guy have a pedal fall off his crankarm, which made my problems seem trivial.

While I was essentially waterlogged (bibshorts and light wind shell) I wasn't that cold. When I stopped at the top, I was cold but not shivering. The SAG wagons were filling up with riders who didn't want to do the descent. The thing is, there are enough climbs in both directions to warm oneself on, if one works hard enough.

My Garmin 500 data confimed my suspicions about the temps. The average and minimum temps were 5 degrees warmer than the wet Saturday on which this year's Skagit Spring Classic was held, where I was truly borderline hypothermic.

BengeBoy 

I rode it 3 years ago and the weather was terrific -- except at the very top, where it was pretty windy. I heard later (or read here) that a couple of riders got blown over by the wind.

In any case, after paying and canceling a couple of times because of the weather, I've concluded this is a wonderful late-July or early August ride to do w/a group of friends.

busygizmo

Started this thread more out of frustration that the past three years have been the same, forecast looks good a week out and then goes to crap.
Was genuinely curious to hear about someone who did it x number of years ago and they had great weather.
I'm happy we went ahead and did the ride 2 years ago and am happy I managed to finish the whole thing on limited training hours and had dressed appropriately for a cold/wet descent off the Johnston ridge. The GF and I managed to have a good time despite the marginal weather. We only got rained on for 2-3 hours but that included the descents.
I heard last year there were folks nearly hypothermic recovering in vans and ambulances, luckily we avoided that. The temps didn't look that bad for this past Saturday but since I'm not currently training for anything bigger I'm not super excited about shelling out the cash for the ride and half a tank of gas to go suffer for 5-6 hours and then have to come home and clean up all my gear. I used to be more core when I was younger but these days I would like to have fun on a recreational ride.
I figured the scheduling had something to do with avoiding the heavier tourist weekends in summer but I think if we are going to do this ride again we’ll come down on a weekday in late summer and do it on our own. We typically go down to Rainier and do a ride or two on a weekday every summer and the roads are usually very low traffic-wise and I assume it would be similar for this.
It’s always good to be prepared for crappy weather around here but it’s hard to be too critical of folks who are a little overly optimistic when it comes to predicting weather. I’ve been climbing in the Cascades for a while now off and on and people will look for the slightest sliver of hope that their planned climb will go. Sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you end up spending 2 or more days hiking in the rain.