What is the strangest place that you sought shelter during a rainstorm?

In my early years of riding I never thought of checking forecasts, ended up in a road grader all night and used their grease tube to waterproof my boots!

A road grader beats my offering.

I sat out a strong thunderstorm with hail in a funeral home in a small town in southern Illinois. The folks working there seemed pleased to have the company for a couple hours. Nice folks and interesting conversation.

Four instances among several come to mind:

One was plywood cover between two grain elevator tanks to get out of the rain in western Kansas.

One was a car wash to get out of the wind and hail in north central Iowa.

One was a car wash to get some shade and spray each other to wet down and cool off in 112 degree heat in Dodge City, Kansas.

And the best was the concrete block motel building we checked into while the tornado sirens were wailing because there were two tornadoes on the ground within three to five miles of that little highway crossroads village in western Kansas. The next morning as we rode out of town we went past a swath of downed trees, several tossed buildings, and other debris about 3 miles from that stout, secure motel.

In the summer of '77, a friend and I headed west out of MI, for our first motorcycle foray out west, a month long 14,000 mile odyssey. The first day out, we stopped in a small town in northern WI for gas. While fueling, the weather started getting ugly. The attendant told us we could pull our bikes into one of the bays. While in there the storm worsened and sirens started sounding. The power went out, trees started coming down and roofs were lifted off of some of the buildings. Fortunately, no fatalities and no significant damage to the gas station from the tornados that passed through the town. The attendant opened the bay and we continued on our journey. Thankful for the attendant's thoughtfulness.

I rode into Sioux Falls SD just before a big black Thunderstorm. As I was checking in to my motel the Tornado Warning Sirens sounded and we all hustled into the large Women's restroom which was their designated Tornado Shelter. Thankfully I got a "Seat" as we were in there for about 30 minutes until the storm went by.

We got some hard to beat tales already. I've used the carwash trick before, but never thought of using it for cooling down, I'll remember that this July! The ladies room sounds like something right outa Top Gun!

A Deputy Sheriff “let” me sit his car once while it was raining.

akbeemer said:

A Deputy Sheriff “let” me sit his car once while it was raining.

Click to expand...

So Kevin, were you in the back seat while he was writing the ticket?

I have never found shelter from the weather, but my wife and I sat out a hail storm in the middle of nowhere, Montana. We were wearing helmets and jackets. We stopped along the interstate, put the kickstand down and just sat on the motorcycle while hail stones rapped away on our heads. The hail stopped and then there was a man standing next to us asking if we were ok. He had pulled up behind us and with all the noise from the hail I didn't know he was there. We sat there for a few minutes until the traffic had chased most of the hail off the road and off we went. When I tell people about this they always ask why we didn't find an underpass to park under? They don't realize the next underpass might be twenty miles down the road. There was nowhere to hide.


Another time we just parked in an underpass to put on our rain gear. We were just a few miles out of Camden AR, but we were going to get good and wet before we got there. We got geared up and rode the last few miles and when we got to the city there were trees ripped up by there roots, business signs down and debris all over. I was looking for a gas station and was at a stop sign when an ambulance drove by. I remember the passenger looking at us in shock that we were out there in that mass. I found out later they had a small tornado pass over. Then the next problem was to find a gas station with electricity as the power was out all over town. The GPS lead us to one a few miles down the road.

Obvious to most of course ...

... in a 4-wheel vehicle you’re in a Faraday cage ... on a motorcycle getting wet could be a secondary problem.

And yes, hail hurts ... and you could lose that glass headlight cover on your R100RS or RT.

I don’t hide but I did pull into a rest stop to put on raingear on my way to Lebanon last year and of course it didn’t rain again.

We were headed to St. Louis just outside of Alton, IL on a back road. We hit a sudden thunderstorm and no shelter. Spied a parking lot full of semi trailers and parked and huddled under the trailers. We sat on a sheepskin to make the rocky ground more comfortable.

Leo's South - BMW Motorcycles - Lakeville, MN - 2009

This is a little hazy.

Team Strange had just given their rider briefing, the night before that year's Minnesota 1,000. The night before the event you could visit a couple bonus points, that I believe were mandatory, like Bob's Java Hut - a sponsor. Maybe if you went to Bob's Java Hut you got a free coffee cup. Like the one I am drinking coffee from right now. The 24 hour event would officially start at 0800 the next morning. Just at the end of the rider briefing a big thunderstorm, severe winds, maybe a tornado siren, rolls thru as we take shelter in Leo's. The storm passes, the rain and blowing stops and somebody says "now that's the way to start a rally" and we all rode away.

Wayne Koppa
Grayling, MI
#71,449

I remembered another, this one maybe the scariest.

Voni was riding out west in California while I was at work in Kansas. It was the 4th of July weekend so I decided to make it a 3.33 day weekend and ride out to Colorado from Topeka. I left early afternoon on Friday intending to get as far as Oakley or Colby in far western Kansas that night. I stopped at a rest area on I-70 and the weather information on the intercom system said their was a severe thunderstorm to my north headed southeast. OK! Good to go.

I was about halfway between Abiline and Salina Kansas on I-70 when the wind kicked up. I was hit by one gust that caused me to scrape by footpeg making a correction while trying to go straight down the interstate. I was in a construction zone where the right lane was closed and had been milled ready for an overlay. Orange barrels were gliding across the road; some airborne. Then it started to rain. I spotted an overpass and pulled across the construction lane and parked right next to the guard rail. A pickup pulled in behind me. He said as soon as he saw me he backed off and put on his flashers because he knew I was about to crash. Next was a van with a half dozen college kids who were a theatrical troupe going to entertain at various girl scout camps. Then several more cars.

On the truck radio we heard that the winds were clocked at 85 in Abiline and 106 at the Salina airport where several small planes had been flipped in the wind. The college kids soon broke out a big canister of popcorn so we had a little party waiting for things to settle down. After about a half hour the wind subsided but the heavy rain continued. They all drove off but I waited up under that overpass for another couple of hours. When the rain settled down to a light rain I headed on. As luck would have it, one and a half miles further west there was a rest area. If I had made it that far I could have waited inside the building. I went to Salina and got a motel room at midnight, 200 or so miles short of my intended stopping place.

Hwy 40 east of Vernal Utah we got caught in a bad hail storm. I saw a house with a carport a little off the highway and pulled in.
I knocked on the door to let the owner know why we were there. The lady insisted we come in instead of standing in the carport. We ended up staying quite awhile visiting.

We had a few times when the weather was good while riding and a downpour would start just as we pull into the motel.
Sometimes you get lucky.

First night after the Lebanon rally.


The next night


Another trip

Annie and I were in Texhoma, OK visiting a college professor of ours. We left in the morning headed north. What started out as a mild breeze soon became a torrent of wind with gusts in the 60s. We made it 40 miles to Elkhart, KS and stopped at a cafe for some coffee and think time. I asked the waitress about a place to stay and she said they had a room right there at the cafe and we took it sight unseen. The "room" was really a small abondoned store adjacent to the cafe with the large display windows. Some cloth was stappled around the windows, there was a small (maybe 13 inch) TV with rabbit ears, a bed and a few chairs; but it was dry. As is often the case, with the wind came the dust and this place was drafty enough to let it become quite dusty inside. To top it off Annie became ill with some sort of 24 hour bug. It was a wonderful night.

A second tale that happened to Annie on a solo ride to Chicago. Coming home she was near Mitchell, SD and the wind started coming up. It got bad enough that she got off the interstate and rode on a frontage road. She stopped for fuel intending to find a motel afterwards. She went inside to get a drink and as she began to leave the counter guy told her he could not let her leave. This was a bit alarming initially but soon it became clear he was concerned for her safety. The already high winds were expected to become much stronger. He offered to call a motel down the road and arrange a room. It was a multi-story motel of a national chain, the name of which I cannot remember. After hanging up the guy told her to pull up to the side of the motel and the manager would meet her. She did so and not only was she greeted by the manager, but he insisted she park her bike inside the motel in a hallway leading to the door, and assisted her getting the bike through the door. In the morning the door she entered was blocked by blown sand and the manager soon had a staff member shovel it away and help Annie get the bike outside. Full service, indeed.

In and under the front doorway overhang of a church with the bike to avoid the rain & severe lightning!
I didn't get struck so all was good!

July 4th, 1996. My buddy and I were near Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (on our way back to Fairbanks) and a tornado decided to roar through the area. We holed up in a convenience store with no electricity while it was dark and scary and then headed west. It started raining again with wind really roaring out of the north. We pulled off to the only "shelter" we could find, a covered sign describing the migratory habits of the Crane (or some other migratory bird). The bottom of the sign was 8-10 inches off the ground so we stood there up against the sign staying as dry as possible with the wind and rain completely soaking us from mid-calf down. The next morning we saw on the news that the destruction from the tornado included severe damage to a drive-in theater... that had been scheduled to show the movie Tornado! that evening.