So.... flash floods.
Any Americans reading this are doubtless going to be a bit bemused, given rainy old England's popular image but really, flash floods are something of a novelty here. We generally get much more businesslike rain. None of this flashy months-worth-in-12-hours stuff. Rain that settles in and does the job without fuss. The rivers swell and burst their banks, but you can see that coming with the water levels rising inch by inch. The valleys fill up, but only after they and the hilltops have been pretty sodden for a while. But what we had on Friday was, without question, a flash flood. And bugger me but it caused some chaos.
I work out in the sticks. This means, again for the benefit of Americans and others used to somewhat larger scale countries, twenty whole minutes of riding down country lanes to get there. In the twenty minutes it took me to get to work I got wetter than I've ever been while clothed, including the occasion in which I fell off a barge into a canal. Bike leathers hold so much water it's silly. Most of the morning I spent stealing heaters to dry my clothes over. (Several people will be coming back from business trips to cold offices. Screw them, I was wet.) Around about lunchtime the road outside my office started to flood, people frantically wading out to move their cars before the water level rose over the doors. My amused observation of all this was interrupted by the wife calling to say the back garden was under water. After some thought I asked her to speak to the neighbor and see if this is a common occurrence. Then the rain stopped, some fire engines pumped the water outside the office away and I didn't think any more of it until Nicola phoned again to say Bill hadn't seen water like this in the fifty years he'd been living here, and it had risen another six inches in the last 20 minutes. Fuck.
I can't find the boss, so I just bugger off. (it's that kind of office, to those of you who can't do that sort of thing I have just this to say: Suckers!) The local travel news says that many local roads are "impassible" but I have my secret weapon. Betsy-Jane, my trusty Kawasaki ER-5. Yes, that's a motorcycle. No, I am not insane. (Unless you're talking about naming them, in which case I might be a little) A motorcycle has three advantages in flood conditions. Big wheels. As long as you keep the speed down, big wheels help get over whatever crap's been washed onto the road, or out of any new potholes. (And seriously, who does anything other than a crawl in floodwater?) High exhaust/air intake. It'll run in 18 inches of water, easy. And finally if it does stall, I can always push it out onto high ground and start it again. I'd like to see you do that with a 4 by 4. Obviously, the downside is if I drop it it will pin me underwater, I'll drown and my waterlogged body will be repeatedly run over by recovery vehicles until the water level drops and my pancaked corpse will be revealed in all it's grisly glory. But I try not to dwell on the negative.
I set off and I'm immediately stuck by how dry the high ground is. Then I hit my first valley and discover exactly where all the water went. The bridge is out. This utterly confounds me. This is 21st Century Britain, not the wild west. The bridge is not supposed to be washed out by 12 hours of rainfall. We build better bridges than that, there's a sodding nursery rhyme about it. There's nothing for it but to turn around and try another route. Trouble is, I've just passed a school and dozens of parents have turned up to collect their children. No one can get out one way and the traffic's stacked back to block all the turnings. After some pandemonium a group of five of us break away and turn down a long windy road that's at least half washed away. There's great swathes of it where the flood waters washed stones over it so it's like riding along a shingle beach. (Not recommended in road tires.) The tarmac's been ripped up in places and scattered over the rest of the road in great chunks. One by one drivers balk at some obstacle or other until it's only myself and one other still traveling. Eventually we hit a road parallel to our original direction of travel, huzzah! It's under six inches of water, boo!
A local resident, in true Dunkirk spirit is standing at the junction directing traffic. When told my destination he thinks for a bit then replies "try down here then take green lane to the left. At least, no-one I've directed down there has come back." There's two ways of interpreting that, but I thank him for his advice and start down the road, and much to my relief gets better before long.
Trouble is, parallel to my original direction is perpendicular to the valley that blocked it in the first place. There's a travelodge along the way where people are being waved in by helpful bystanders: apparently the way forward is blocked, stop here, they have a bar. Tempting, but my wife and child need me. (It's been best part of an hour now, that could be another foot and a half of water for all I knew.) I move on and they call after me "See you soon." Thanks for the vote of confidence.
Sure enough, it is well and truly flooded. Foot and a half with an abandoned car in the middle. This is how I discover the bike works fine in 18 inches of water: halfway through I meet another biker coming in the opposite direction. We exchange wry looks and continue on. After that the story rather fizzles out, as that was the last of the water and apart from horrendous traffic over the M4 junction (which concerned us motorcyclists not one whit) it was clear sailing back home, where the water levels were already sinking and no furniture had to be moved upstairs.
But there. My wife called and I didn't let rain nor flood nor washed out bridges stop me. I was officially mighty.
It was also fun, but don't let that distract you from the mighty.
I work out in the sticks. This means, again for the benefit of Americans and others used to somewhat larger scale countries, twenty whole minutes of riding down country lanes to get there. In the twenty minutes it took me to get to work I got wetter than I've ever been while clothed, including the occasion in which I fell off a barge into a canal. Bike leathers hold so much water it's silly. Most of the morning I spent stealing heaters to dry my clothes over. (Several people will be coming back from business trips to cold offices. Screw them, I was wet.) Around about lunchtime the road outside my office started to flood, people frantically wading out to move their cars before the water level rose over the doors. My amused observation of all this was interrupted by the wife calling to say the back garden was under water. After some thought I asked her to speak to the neighbor and see if this is a common occurrence. Then the rain stopped, some fire engines pumped the water outside the office away and I didn't think any more of it until Nicola phoned again to say Bill hadn't seen water like this in the fifty years he'd been living here, and it had risen another six inches in the last 20 minutes. Fuck.
I can't find the boss, so I just bugger off. (it's that kind of office, to those of you who can't do that sort of thing I have just this to say: Suckers!) The local travel news says that many local roads are "impassible" but I have my secret weapon. Betsy-Jane, my trusty Kawasaki ER-5. Yes, that's a motorcycle. No, I am not insane. (Unless you're talking about naming them, in which case I might be a little) A motorcycle has three advantages in flood conditions. Big wheels. As long as you keep the speed down, big wheels help get over whatever crap's been washed onto the road, or out of any new potholes. (And seriously, who does anything other than a crawl in floodwater?) High exhaust/air intake. It'll run in 18 inches of water, easy. And finally if it does stall, I can always push it out onto high ground and start it again. I'd like to see you do that with a 4 by 4. Obviously, the downside is if I drop it it will pin me underwater, I'll drown and my waterlogged body will be repeatedly run over by recovery vehicles until the water level drops and my pancaked corpse will be revealed in all it's grisly glory. But I try not to dwell on the negative.
I set off and I'm immediately stuck by how dry the high ground is. Then I hit my first valley and discover exactly where all the water went. The bridge is out. This utterly confounds me. This is 21st Century Britain, not the wild west. The bridge is not supposed to be washed out by 12 hours of rainfall. We build better bridges than that, there's a sodding nursery rhyme about it. There's nothing for it but to turn around and try another route. Trouble is, I've just passed a school and dozens of parents have turned up to collect their children. No one can get out one way and the traffic's stacked back to block all the turnings. After some pandemonium a group of five of us break away and turn down a long windy road that's at least half washed away. There's great swathes of it where the flood waters washed stones over it so it's like riding along a shingle beach. (Not recommended in road tires.) The tarmac's been ripped up in places and scattered over the rest of the road in great chunks. One by one drivers balk at some obstacle or other until it's only myself and one other still traveling. Eventually we hit a road parallel to our original direction of travel, huzzah! It's under six inches of water, boo!
A local resident, in true Dunkirk spirit is standing at the junction directing traffic. When told my destination he thinks for a bit then replies "try down here then take green lane to the left. At least, no-one I've directed down there has come back." There's two ways of interpreting that, but I thank him for his advice and start down the road, and much to my relief gets better before long.
Trouble is, parallel to my original direction is perpendicular to the valley that blocked it in the first place. There's a travelodge along the way where people are being waved in by helpful bystanders: apparently the way forward is blocked, stop here, they have a bar. Tempting, but my wife and child need me. (It's been best part of an hour now, that could be another foot and a half of water for all I knew.) I move on and they call after me "See you soon." Thanks for the vote of confidence.
Sure enough, it is well and truly flooded. Foot and a half with an abandoned car in the middle. This is how I discover the bike works fine in 18 inches of water: halfway through I meet another biker coming in the opposite direction. We exchange wry looks and continue on. After that the story rather fizzles out, as that was the last of the water and apart from horrendous traffic over the M4 junction (which concerned us motorcyclists not one whit) it was clear sailing back home, where the water levels were already sinking and no furniture had to be moved upstairs.
But there. My wife called and I didn't let rain nor flood nor washed out bridges stop me. I was officially mighty.
It was also fun, but don't let that distract you from the mighty.