Manatees Roar into the 20s! CLOSED (Page 104)

Orange.

Oh, you probably meant the model!  Yeti SB140.

I believe there are national standards that govern the closing of pools when there is lighting. Even though the pool is indoors or may have a lightning rod, pools are connected to a much larger surface area via underground water pipes, gas lines, electric and telephone wiring, etc. Lightning strikes to the ground anywhere on this metallic network may induce shocks elsewhere.

So yesterday I had an opportunity to take a lunch ride, which was a bit of a discovery mission. Gravel biking to the core. There is a piece of State Preserve land that was originally slated for housing. This means that roads were cut, but never truly built out and are now grown over. We've been looking at it for opportunities to create a multi surface loop. Today that discovery continues. However, the piece I want to share is that the gravel bike was absolutely the tool for this job. Grass trails, no problem. Abandoned crushed shell golf cart paths, no problem. Double track of packed dirt and soft sand, a bit of a challenge. Roads that connected it all up, yeah 19.5 MPH with little effort.  

Now for the bad part. I got home, put the bike on my garage rack and went inside. 4 hours later, I went back out and the front tire was flat. I believe I pinch flatted it when I threw it on the rack. This wouldn't have happened if I had gone tubeless. My rims are not tubeless compatible, so I have some tire maintenance tonight.

So, long story short (too late) gravel bikes are the Swiss Army knife of bikes. Tubeless is good.

I really need to bite the bullet and go tubeless. I think my lack of knowledge about what that really entails keeps me from doing it.

Kevin is getting a lesson on sealant, plugs, and bacon. I'm sure that some Manatees can give us the low down.  If no one chimes in, I'll ask Kevin to share his notes with us.

X

If i have to eat bacon to go tubeless i'll have to stick with tubes or I'll be kicked out of the vegetarian club

LOL, bacon is the nickname for plugs. I'm not tubeless although I have fought with a tubeless setup as a test, which failed due to a lack of equipment on my part. No high volume pump for seating and no adapter plugs for my non-tubeless ready rime. It was an experiment destined to fail 

The gravel bike envy/lust continues to grow...

Thankfully I've already decided it will be a next season purchase which works out great with the national bike shortage.  A couple local shops have a couple options but they don't last long on the showroom floor.

So I was curious about this so I went searching and this is what I found.  When Lightning Strikes by Tom & Matthew Griffiths 

I know that research isn't complete without reading a minimum of three references, and I only read one, but this article said that indoor pools should never close for weather.  By the numbers, they sited 60 pool electrocutions over 13 years of national data and none of them were due to electrical storms.  The article also sites a single year lighting strike statistic where 44 out 45 people who were hit by lightning were outdoors. The most interesting thing was this that they quote someone stating that closing indoor pools due to electrical storms is in direct violations of the National Electric Code section 250.4(A)(1) and that closures would be subject to regulatory enforcement.  So...article number one denies any regulations requiring pool closures and found a standard that actually requires that the pool not close for electrical storms.  These guys feel that urban legends and false information are the reason that indoor pool close.  Two more articles to go.  I am guessing that there is an article somewhere out there that is equally compelling for closing indoor pools during electrical storms.  I like the data that these guys brought into their article though.  Zero accounts of indoor pool electrocutions due to lightning and 98% of all lightning strikes being outdoors.  

 

I was told that it had to do with insurance.

Interesting. Although if pools are closing for lightning then i wouldn't expect any electrocutions! I wonder how many people are put in danger when the pool closes and they are sent out into the lightning? 

LOL...well an OWS is my only alternative when the pool is closed for the weather. ;-) But, no I am not dumb enough to swim outdoors in a storm. Running on the indoor track with a mask on seemed like a more reasonable option than driving 40 minutes to the lake to swim in the rain. 

The frustrating thing is that the indoor pool has been closed 2-3 times "for the weather" and none of them were any worst than the 3 races I have been to when it was raining.   

My first race in the rain went on right on schedule with no changes to the race.  It was 55 deg F outside, due to the rain, and the water was 65 deg F.  The bike ride in the rain sucked.  The swim wasn't bad at all and we would have rather stayed in the water than get on the bike. There was a 6-7 mile downhill portion on the bike course and going 35-40 MPH for 10-12 minutes when I was soaking wet froze me half to death.

The second race I went to in the rain modified the swim course because the high winds were blowing away some of the buoys and after trying to reset them multiple times they just used the ones that were staying in place and let the others blow down to the damn.  It cut the swim on a 70.3 race down to about 1300 yds.  That swim had waves on the water due to all the wind and was the wildest swim I have done.  Sometimes I would be starting a breath right as I was on the peak of on the swells and as my face would come up I would swell under me would collapse and I would fall smacking my face on the water at the bottom of the swell. 

The third race had us sit in the rain for 2-1/2 hours then started the race, but canceled the swim.  I was happy for the cancelation because my training had been inadequate to be ready for the race and I had just got my get out of jail free card.  Many were very disappointed in the swim cancelation and want to then to hold the swim in those conditions that we had.  

So... with our indoor pool closing in conditions that were no worse than what I had seen on race days I feel that closing the indoor pool could be avoided.  

Looks awesome, Karen! And happy birthday! 

I've heard the compressor is the way to go.  Thanks for the intel and the confirmation about how to seat the tire.

Very nice! Thanks for sharing!

Nice pics, happy belated birthday!