Bikewolf

Has anyone ever gotten into a hailstorm with no immediate shelter nearby? Maybe add thunder, lightning and heavy rain in the mix ...
How painful was your experience? Or, what does one do?

surak

Sure, just keep riding. Provided you have a helmet to protect your head, what else can you do? You'll end up with some welts on your arms, but unless we're talking extremely rare baseball-sized hail, there's not going to be much risk of permanent damage.

Also in terms of bike commuting, looking at the weather forecast is key. If there's a good chance for lightning and strong wind, find a different means of transportation or try to adjust riding to a milder part of the day.

Darth Lefty 

I dunno! I guess you could put your jacket or poncho over your bike and hide under it.

flangehead

I use Accuweather app and find it very good at the next few hours at my specific location.

However I don’t think it forecasts a storm that hasn’t developed yet.

One “thunderstorms in the area” afternoon I looked and appeared to have a hole in the weather to go home. Pack up and change and 15 minutes later I’m on the way home. 10 minutes into my journey the skies open up and lightning starts flashing. I was in an undeveloped park area and hustled 2 miles to a pavilion for cover.

Point is that you can get surprised and need to think of nearest shelter.

I’m very allergic to lightning. I break out in death.

pdlamb

I've been caught out a few times. Psychologically, hail hitting you when you're stopped hurts worse than what hits you when you're riding. Or maype it's physiological, when you stop you relax and then get pinged, even if you're standing under a shallow overhang and the wind blows it in. The worst is small hailstones that fly through a helmet vent.

What to do? Either swear a lot, or pray for sunshine. Or both.

Clyde1820

Yes. Once.

Was quite painful. Stones were roughly the size of golf balls. Hurt quite a lot.

No cover, so no means of guarding against strikes. Simply sucked it up and became much more cautious about "ugly" skies and what they might contain in them. (Hadn't seen a violent hailstorm front prior to that day. Won't ever forget its look ... and how rapidly it moved.)

I wince each time I see a news story about baseball sized hail storms. Can't imagine how damaging that must be, if stuck in the middle of it. Deadly, probably.

BikeLite

https://www.weather.gov/safety/lightning-outdoors

Lightning safety outdoors.

Korina

What if the hail doesn't immediately melt? Then you're riding on wet ball bearings.