Bonneville America Forums Forums General Motorcycle Forums Rides, Rallies, & Events Tornado Warning

This goes out to everyone in Maryland, DC, Northern Virginia, Southern Pennsylvania.

I often see the old biker sticker: "$15K and 15 miles doesn't make you a biker". The sticker never says right out what does make you a biker, but I think I've got some claim. Here's my story...

Friday, I was coming home from work on the good 'ol trusty Triumph. It was beautiful weather. I got off the interstate and onto the rural two-lane highway that takes me home. I look at the sky where I'm going and notice the ominous wrath of Thor rainclouds coming from the south east. I've only got about 20 minutes till I'm home and I don't mind getting a little wet, so I don't worry about it. About five minutes down the road, it's starts to rain. I zip up my coat and keep on going. Three minutes later, the skys opened up and just started dumping rain. I had no where to stop but was about a mile and a half from a underpass, so I barrelled on taking it slow for about 1.5 miles in zero visability until I made it under that bridge.

Got off the bike, checked the phone. I have a voicemail. Oh, there's a tornado warning? Oh, one touched down south east of where I'm currently sitting? Oh, they say the tornado is moving north west? Great, I'm going to die under this bridge.

I didn't, luckily, although the GF might argue otherwise, but I did sit under that bridge for 45 minutes in tornado conditions. Winds, rain, tree branches falling, cats and dogs living together: mass hysteria. What amazed me though it that not one car stopped that entire time I was under the bridge, and not to see if I was ok, not to even say "hey, there's a tornado warning," nothing.

After about 45 minutes, there was a lull in the storm and I could see sun a blue skys. This was my chance because I could see more storm clouds moving in behind the sunshine. I waited five minutes for the clear skys to move down the road (they were going in the same direction as I), then I hopped on the bike and hoped for the best.

Ten minutes that's all I had to do. Rain wasn't that bad, it hurt my face a bit, but not the downpour like earlier. The guy behind me was following too close. Didn't seem to understand that when I make a pushing back motion with my hand it means back off. He got it when I made the same motion with one finger though.

Glasses have started fogging up. The rain drops were starting to feel like shards of glass on my face. I had about five minutes left to go when it started hailing. The hail was only the size of peas but they hurt like getting hit with a bag of frozen ones. Almost home. I had to pull over again though to defog my riding glasses. Turned off the highway, only a quarter mile left.

I pulled onto the road that my neighborhood is off of thinking that no matter what mother nature threw at me I could take. She apparently heard my cocky comment because, what happened next I was not expecting. Literally 200 feet before my street the entire road had flooded leaving about 2 inches of standing water. Unfortuately for me, the pool was right after I crested a hill, so I did not have ample time to slow down. I slowed as much as I could as safely as I could, but still hit the standing water at about 15 mph. It was a that point that my motorcycle became a jetski. I hydroplaned across the pool, made it the 200 feet to my neighborhood, and got home just as the sky lit up with lightning. I had won. Sean: 1 Tornadostorm: 0

I was soaked, pumped up on adreneline, and my helmet was finally clean of all the bug guts. For all my fellow riders in the Maryland area who had the pleasure of enjoying the Tornado weather on Friday. I hope that you were safely inside and were not affected by the storm. If any of you were out in the storm like me, I hope that you got home safely and didn't have quite the adventure that I did. For those of you that were caught out there, we should get Tshirts.

Good story!

I'm a sucker for happy endings...
You SHOULD get a t-shirt!

Been through some BAD weather myself, but not as bad as your trip home. Glad you made it home. Now, on to the next ride!

Glad you made it home safe n sound and also glad we do not have them in the UK...

One of the more unique benefits of riding a motorcycle, eh?

I love racing Mother Nature!

Glad you made it home safe, and yeah you shoulda got a t-shirt for sure.

Forest Grump " they had sideways rain & rain that just seemed to come up from the ground" From Whiteface Mtn to LK George we had been in a blinding down pour & narrowly missed a snapping turtle the size of a garbage can cover, the 1st of 3 riders. Did my best "charades" to point the dinosaur to my buddies. Did the hellride for like 3 hrs of stop & go & the weather clears right before we get to our destination, almost dry when we get there, park the bikes change out of the wet gear crack a victory brew & the skies open up again. Never forget that experience!