Heading out this morning for a ride on the Switchback over to Black Bear Harley Davidson for a belated 22,500 mile service and tires.

With luck, I may find a way to miss the “scattered thunderstorms” scheduled to start around noon on the way back.

Dodging the rain hasn’t been that hard on most outings with any of our motorcycles so far this summer.  When the National Weather Service gurus in Blacksburg forecast “scattered” storms, they aren’t kidding.

Some of our storms are so scattered that you can have hard rain in the front yard and none in the back.  On a trip back from Check two weeks ago after shooing a horse-drawn pull behind the elementary school, I left around 3 p.m. with clear sunny skies on a Saturday afternoon.

When I turned left onto Poor Farm Road, clouds began to blot out the sun.  I turned on Sandy Flats Road about a mile later and the skies opened up, drenching me and the bike for about 45 seconds until about 200 feet from Greeenbriar Lane when the rain disappeared and the road was dry.

I put my cameras away and I crawled on one of the bikes for a ride into Floyd to pick up some items at Food Lion.  It was dry and sunny.  No rain.

On a ride Monday, a small cloud moved through shortly after 1 p.m. and dropped a few drops on U.S. 221 just north of Floyd but it was dry when I arrived home.

Rain gear remains packed in one of the saddlebags in case I run into a real storm at some point today but, at the moment, the weather does not look that threatening.  The forecast calls for “thunderstorms possible at 12:30 p.m. with rain ending at 12:45 p.m.”  Usually, predictions of rain beginning at a specific time get pushed to later times in the day or disappear from the listing on weather.com.

OK.  I’ve jinxed it.  Will probably get drenched in a gullywasher on the way home from Wytheville this afternoon.

That’s OK.  I won’t melt.