Cyclist Struck By Lightning - WE CANT WIN...

But I NEED a carbon frame so I don't ground out the lightning should I get hit....

How does that sound?

Glad she's okay!

But the carbon will not conduct the lightning.  So your body will ;(

Not that it would make much difference, but a steel framed bike would theoretically be the safest.

I realize lightning can and does jump many thousands of feet already and was mostly joking but a carbon bike would not conduct electricity, correct, which is why I would suggest it. If you're not grounded, you can hold onto high tension wires all day without anything happening, you do not complete the circuit. It's only when you ground out that the bad things happen. It's why ladders are fibreglass now instead of the metal ones from my youth. Note that birds hang out on high power lines without harm all the time.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/shock.html

Beat me to it.   Carbon is a pretty good electrical conductor.  

Didn't think of that one. I'll have to come up with another reason to need a carbon bike

It also tends to be an excellent heat conductor, depending on the type of fiber.

Wow, I had always thought it was an insulator.  My bad...

better to burn out than fade away..

Your tires insulate you from grounding.  Put that metal cleat down or catch a flat and you're toast!  Don't stop if it's cloudy!

Something tells me that tiny bit of rubber is not going to insulate you the same way your car tires do..

Stuff happens.  What's next is a question that has probably already been answered... dog bites, mud slides, earth quakes... volcanic eruption sounds pretty exotic.   

This is false and reckless advice.   If you see lightning or hear thunder, get inside.  You are within range of a lightning strike.

If you were joking, please use the red font!

http://www.lightningsafety.com/nlsi_pls/vehicle_strike.html


or not.

Actually the tires on a car aren't insulating you either.  It's that the electricity travels around you in the body/frame when you're in the car instead of through you.

If there is lightning outside why the hell are you riding your bike???

In Colorado storms can come and go within 5 minutes.  Sometimes you're just out in the middle of no where and a storm pops up without warning, especially if it pops out from the other side of a mountain range.  Even our weather forecasters on TV will make comments like "We'll just leave the chance of thunderstorms in the forecast for everyday because... well... it's Colorado and you never know"

One reason to love living in Seattle. Lowest per capita lightning strike of any of the lower 48 (if I remember correctly) that being said, I still never ride in a T-storm as I have seen what happens to a tree when it gets hit, I am not nearly as big as a tree or as sturdily constructed.

The lightning just traveled 3-10 miles through the the air so the 6 inches of rubber is no big deal.  
Really sitting in a car is good because the steel frame conducts the lightning around the outside.  Don't put your hand on something metal or your toast.

You guys are crackin' me up.  I was TOTALLY JOKING about itty bitty tires protecting you unless you put your foot down!  That's just silly.  If you're going to struck, you're going to be struck.  Lightning is one of the most amazing things in nature, but also impossible to predict.  There are several instances in marinas where so called "grounded" sailboats are struck by lightning and sunk.  The premise of "grounding" the boat is that there is a conductive wire led from the mast to a fitting that touches the water, and the voltage will take that path to "ground".  Problem is, massive voltage does not want to get forced through a little wire, so it takes the path of least resistance and blows a hole in bottom or side of the boat to get to "ground" (water).  You can sit on the biggest tires you want, you're still part of the "least path of resistance".  Also, you don't have to be touching any part of an object stuck by lightning to be hit.  You can be yards away and still be killed.  Again, I was kidding, lightning is cool but scary.

Andy

I'm never going outside again...ever.