So I'm in Lafayette, Louisiana and I decide today is a good day to go for a long bike ride. Yesterday I was in Bristol, Tennessee and had only enough time to do some sprints on some very fun hilly county roads (37 MPH max!). I get some suggested routes from packpaddle.com and chose a nice 38 mile route (42miles on my odometer). All was well in the sweltering heat. There was the usual angst about finding my way in a new place, and the usual turn arounds when the map and my brain couldn't synch up. About half way through I started noticing the darkening sky to my south. As I turned north to return to the hotel the sky was not looking good. With 1/3 of the way to go the cumulonimbus clouds were walling up behind and to my left and starting to also form on my right. I pedaled my wee-Dahon as fast as I could (not very) and I was beating the storm when a train interrupted my pedaling. With less than 2 miles to go I was stuck waiting on a northbound train and I watched the end of the train start to get wet. So I got wet, crossed the tracks and pedaled like mad to see if I could again get into the dry lightening free zone before the thunderhead.. overhead as it were. It worked! It must have been a very slow moving storm, but my 20MPH got me out of the rain and kept me ahead of the lightening all the way to the hotel. There was a lot of praying involved, so I'm going to say We had a fun time beating another storm. It also got my avg. speed to 14.1 over 42 miles which is pretty good for me on that bike.