Here’s a very helpful bike riding hint/tip that I use all the time now and wanted to pass along: Check your local weather radar if you are concerned about rain before your next ride.

Many of you may already be aware of this or use this service regularly but for you riders out there that haven’t looked into checking your local weather radar before your rides I wanted to pass this on.

Checking your local weather radar before a fairly short ride (up to an hour or two ride) is extremely helpful. For longer rides (like most of the day), you’ll need to depend mostly on the local weather forecast or maybe check the radar for a much wider area.

This helps on a cloudy day or when it looks a little like rain and the forcast predicts some percentage chance of rain but you just don’t know if you will get soaked or not.

Checking the local weather radar is not 100% accurate at picking up a few sprinkles here and there but it is very accurate at locating heavier rain clouds. If you see a large area of green, yellow or red heading towards the area that you are planning your ride you can be pretty sure that you are going to get very wet. You can also judge how fast the rain is moving into your area by animating the radar map and checking the time frame of the updates.

On the other hand, if it is 100% clear on the radar you could still get a few sprinkles but you can be confident that you can take your ride and that you will not get totally soaked or probably not even get wet at all.

On some days, I have checked the radar and seen rain heading toward the area where I was planning to ride and have predicted, with great accuracy, when the rain would start. I could plan how far and how long I would ride  based on this information. I don’t mind a few raindrops on my ride but I really don’t like getting totally soaked to the point that I have to wring out my cloths after my ride!

I live in the Chicagoland are so I prefer the Chicago Tribune Weather Radar. You can also use the Weather Channel Website Radar  for just about any other location or you may have your own local or personal favorites. You’ll probably want to check a few weather radar websites out to see which ones are best for your area.

If you haven’t tried this before, give it a try. It really is quite helpful. Enjoy the ride…