In preparation for my dual-sport ride in Colorado (I’m lost in dreaming – it’s not until August!) I was cruising DualSportRider.org and was amused at this poll:
Rain, Do I ride or stay in bed?
* I stay in bed.
* What’s a lil rain, I ride.
* Other: Post a comment
I have to cop to being a fair weather rider. Once, long ago in France, I got stuck in Brittany four days because of rain. I can’t remember the exact model of the Honda 750 I was riding; it was a touring bike with an air intake stupidly mounted on the front, which just sucked in the water and choked up the system. (What bike was that, anyway? That trip was in 1988, so it must have been an 86 or thereabouts.)
I admit to being relieved that I didn’t have to ride in the rain, and blamed it on the bike, and not my squeamishness. I didn’t have to be anyplace anytime soon – the best way to travel – so I hung out in my tent reading and writing, walked the beach in my rain gear, sat around in cafes. The place was Brittany, and the beach was pink sand and rocks. Some of the women in town wore the old style black dresses and cylindrical hats of white lace, for real, not because they were trying to attract tourism. It wasn’t a bad delay.
Italy, Y2K, Damanhur (North of Turin) to Geneva: Light rain all day. Worse yet, about 100 tunnels along the cliffs. (I am not exaggerating.) Light-dark, light-dark, light-dark. I had to keep flipping my helmet shield up and down in order to see the road, and my eyes weren’t adjusting very quickly to the light and dark. Though the Guzzi EV 1000 handled excellently, the ride was downright dangerous, and if I didn’t have to be in Florence to meet my friends, I wouldn’t have done it.
Florida, 1995, I was chased to Texas by a hurricane and the Ural didn’t like being wet. We choked and hopped all the way to sunny Mississippi on the Redneck Riviera. I wanted to scuba dive but the hurricane had chased the jellyfish from the Atlantic into the Gulf. The water was thick with the gelatinous creatures, which stung with gentle pinpricks.
Aerostitch has a great selection of rain gear, by the way. But I’m curious. Have you ever had a pleasant riding experience in the rain? Or do you just find it worth the trouble?
My first season riding was in Upstate NY on a 1980 Honda CB400T. The bike’s nearly as old as me… The region of the state is known for having more days of rain than just about anywhere in the country, so I was *always* riding in the rain. Most of the time I enjoyed it, but this was also before I invested in good riding gear. Jeans, Timberlands, leather Agway work gloves, cheapo helmet and a Joe Rocket were my protection from the elements, so I spent a lot of time soaked to the skin. I used to come home and put my boots in the oven to dry them out (which never really helped, and made the house stinky). I remember enjoying my commutes in the rain on the whole, maybe because there was so little traffic and pretty scenery. I certainly wasn’t trying to drag my knee in the corners. I live in Indy, now, and last year I rode a few days in the rain. My gear’s of higher quality these days, but after sitting in traffic for an hour in pouring rain trying to get to FedEx, I left a big puddle on their carpet waiting for my turn in line. The pavement is slicker than wet ice around here, too, when it rains, and I’m just not up for that much pucker going to and fro work.