RYKER: Riding in a severe thunderstorm

I took the Ryker for my work commute today because the weather forecast called for severe thunderstorms in the afternoon. The forecasts were absolutely correct! If you're the impatient type, skip to 9:25 in the video... that's where the fun starts, and the worst of it is from 12:00 to 21:30 .

The storms that rolled through the downtown Houston area were indeed SEVERE and carried 60+ mph winds and heavy rains. Several buildings in the downtown area were damaged by the wind and flying debris... broken windows, etc. I was riding right through the peak of that storm (accidentally). The radar picture that I snapped on my phone was about 15-20 minutes after the worst part of what I rode through. I was in the red zones on that radar image when the storm rolled through the IH-10 corridor near downtown.

The Ryker was a very good commute tool in this case because of the 3-wheel stability and the ABS. There is no need to balance or put your feet down, so the reverse-trike is perfect in these scenarios. The wind was so extreme that I wouldn't have been able to continue on a motorcycle; instead, I would have just parked on the side of the road until the storm passed. Thankfully, I didn't need to do that with the Ryker... I was ready to get out of the rain ASAP! 😉

My rain gear did well except for the pants, which were a complete disaster. I was soaking wet from the waist down because of the leaky zippers on my Olympia pants. The wet jeans underneath fed water into my GoreTex boots, so those weren't able to do their job properly... they aren't made to be fed with water from the top. 🤣

Cheers!

Time indexes:
0:00 Leaving a customer site for a VERY late lunch
9:25 The deluge begins
12:00 Here is the really nasty stuff!
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QM
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