my wife was mad cuz i went unicycling in a thunder storm.
i always heard that rubber tires keeps the electricity from being grounded, so it can’t travel through you and you can’t get hurt–can’t get struck by lightning.
are we safe from lightning while riding?
Who wants to volunter to ahve over 200,000 ampere’s run through them?
I don’t think it’s very safe. First of all you might not be on your uni all the time, so you could be struck by a lightning during or after a sudden UPD… If you ride in the woods there is also a good chance of being killed by a falling tree that has been struck by a lightning. But what the heck, no risk no fun, right?
What are you suggesting, that we all hide under Ethel the Tree?
Would there be room for all of us?
If your wife is anything like my wife, knowing the answer to that question won’t really make a difference. 
Make sure you’re really wet from rain so the electicity will flow over your body instead of through it.
Unicycle in valleys, not ridges.
A bolt of lightning has sufficient energy to travel through thousands of feet of air… do you really think a fraction of an inch of rubber will help you?
Insulating materials have a “breakdown strength” after which they will no longer act as insulators. As for your tire, it will insulate you from a ~5,000V source, but lightning strikes deliver voltages in the 100,000s of Volts.
That tire will insulate you if you ran over an electrified manhole cover, or a bare extension cord, but I wouldn’t test it with much else.
I think your wife and maestro8 are right.
Take care out there Billy!
whoa maestro8 unleashing the inner nerd eh?
Sad to say, it only takes either .5 or .05 amps across the heart to kill ya. You can have millions of volts running thru you just fine, but its the amps that kill ya.
Yes.
Ah, an armchair scientist is flushed out from under cover!
This “volts are okay, amps are killer” is a common misperception amongst the undereducated. A quick review of Ohm’s law will straighten most everything out. In particular: V=IR
This law demonstrates a direct proportion between voltage and current. You can’t have high voltage without high current as well. The human body offers a resistance from 100kOhms (dry) to 1kOhms(wet). I’ll let you do the math on your “millions of volts” statement.
Of course, this law breaks down above a certain voltage, depending on the material(s) encountered by the current. See my above post.
The correct answer is “power kills you”. You need a source that has enough energy to traverse the human body (thus making a circuit), while providing enough current to affect the neuromuscular systems in the body.
Thanks for playing!
Ah, an armchair scientist is flushed out from under cover!
This “volts are okay, amps are killer” is a common misperception amongst the undereducated. A quick review of Ohm’s law will straighten most everything out. In particular: V=IR
This law demonstrates a direct proportion between voltage and current. You can’t have high voltage without high current as well. The human body offers a resistance from 100kOhms (dry) to 1kOhms(wet). I’ll let you do the math on your “millions of volts” statement.
Of course, this law breaks down above a certain voltage, depending on the material(s) encountered by the current. See my above post.
The correct answer is “power kills you”. You need a source that has enough energy to traverse the human body (thus making a circuit), while providing enough current to affect the neuromuscular systems in the body.
Thanks for playing!
+1
In the next thunder storm, practise idling in a copper bowl of salt water. If you’re right, she’ll have to admit it* ; if she’s right, you won’t be worried any more. However, make sure there are no fish in the salt water as they could dissolve your uni.
*No wife could maintain her objections in the face of empirical evidence that she is wrong. That would be irrational.
Maestro8,
Its not that I’m an “armchair scientist” as you claim, I’m just too lazy to do the math. I’ve worked avionics for 9 years, and in that 9 years, I’ve only been hit once, and I pride myself on that. I know electricity is nothing that I, personally, want to meddle with. I know about the pie chart for Ohm’s Law. As I’ve said before, I’m just a bit lazy when it comes to working with Ohm’s Law when my current employment, but I do know it.
Tell her she shouldn’t be mad about your unicycling in a thunder storm. She should only be concerned about your unicycling in a lightning storm.
Thunder won’t kill you.
My wife gets worried when I want to go riding in stormy weather… I tell her it’s ok, 'cause where we live there’s a plethora of taller trees/buildings/mountains etc. If I were going golfing though…
The rubber tire won’t protect from lightning. In a car, the protection comes from the electricity flowing around the outside of the car, not the tires.