Well it was a wild day for a ride yesterday. We met up with our fellow riders in the am and consulted the handy iphone weather radar and decided to take a southerly route to avoid the incoming weather. After reaching our destination and having a great BBQ meal and the best pie in the state. We once again consulted the weather radar and figured we best head south and east and try to get out past the now glowing red blob on the iphone. We managed to reach Lake of the Ozarks and made a stop to consult the radar again and after a wait we headed toward Osage beach. We made the turn north and in less than a minute the tornado sirens went off.

A quick look around and of course there was HD of Lake of the Ozarks where we took cover. It was a bit nerve racking to watch the wind rocking a 900# bike (thank god it did not blow over) The sirenes blarred for 20 min and we watched our bikes praying there would be no hail.

It turns out that a tornado touch down a mile south of us where we had just rode through. While there was a lot of hail damage everywhere around us for some reason we got no hail at the HD deal. (see link for hail size and damage) http://www.kmiz.com/news/story.php?id=17528

Thanks to the good people at Lake Ozark HD for taking us all in!!!

When we left we came across cars that had been smashed by giant hail. I mean if not totaled damn close to it.

So the moral of the story... weather radar on a ride is a handy item... a close by HD dealer... priceless!!!!.

 

Hail from Texas (you know I had to go there )

 

Sirens went off yesterday here in town i think 4 times, wind blowed so hard i just knew it was going to blow down tree's..i just happened to be home working in my shop when it hit so i was not out riding, pulled my bike up under the carport otherwise im sure it would have gotten blown over. We do have 1 tree down on the property and i have a big pile of tree limbs that i picked up..it was a pretty rough storm.

 

So they let you in the store where you can buy things from them and they didn't have a place for you to park the bikes out of the weather? What are you so happy about? I am missing something.

 

DAMN!!!!! I Guess everything is BIGGER in Texas!!!!!! LOL....

 

Yeah, I was thinking like KC, I'd think (unless it was physically impossible room wise) they let you, at least, pull into their service garage.

 

Sometimes you're lucky.. i can only imagine the damage if that hailstorm had hit you in the middle of nowhere..on the open road...with no cover.

 

Glad it wasn't any worse than that for you. A few of us left central Illinois yesterday headed up to Florence, IL. We rode between the rivers from Hardin up. The weather forecast told us that wasn't a very good plan yesterday, but we had reason to go, so we did.

The radar looked like the storm would catch us somewhere between the rivers. We rode 300 miles. There were storm clouds in the distance in most every direction from us all day. We had a few minor drops of rain now and then.

We made it back home about 7p.m. The storm hit here about 9. We almost turned around several times yesterday to head back home and take cover. Glad we stuck to the plan.

Heavy rains aren't that bad. Tornadoes and hail are a different story.

Dennis

 

Jstmatt,
Good decisions help a lot too! Pressing on when the situation isn't right for it is a bad idea.

 

My thoughts exactly. Surely they had room for your bikes it shop or even showroom. But I guess I'm thinking what I would have offered were it my shop. May need to offer a disclaimer to protect the shop just in case but....