Friday, September 12, 2008

Riding in the Rain (Again)

rain

So my afternoon commute found me riding home in the pouring rain and to be honest I was fine with it. As some of you may know I decided some time ago to ride rain or shine yet as the season begins to change I've had to think about what adjustments to make as we move into cooler weather. Rather than riding in rain pants and t-shirt today I decided to ride in long sleeves and vest. Turned out to be a good decision. The ride was relaxing, comfortable, and refreshing, it was nice to have a bit of cool weather. I think the only down side was the wet feet, literally...

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I may have to research some shoe covers, anyone have any opinions?

Another piece of good advice was what Will gave me when he checking into the store as I was leaving. Turn your light on in the rain even if its not dark. I passed another biker on my way home (Josh was that you on Tunxis?) that had his light on and I only saw the light not the rider. Several more that I passed later I could hardly see.

I got a pretty good soaking over all but it was nice, made me realize how we take dry clothes for granted.

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Wet Bag.


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Rain soaked me!

4 comments:

OpusOne said...

totally! Luckily, I threw my rain jacket in my bag as I left in the dry morning. I needed it in the afternoon. I rode home in the wet...the rain definitely increased in intensity as I rode home. I had to change everything when I got home at 6 pm. This summer I bought some NEOS overshoes for the cool spring/fall wet rides...I hope to do a review soon.

Also, when I was approaching the Founders Bridge, I noticed someone ahead of me with their rear blinky on, so it definitely makes a difference. It's a law in NY state to have your lights on in the rain for cars...good idea to follow that on your bike!

chillwill said...

i'll add that lucas's light, that i bought after seeing it, is great in such a situation. the super blinky is well, blinky and quite super. super bright!

ride safe in this rain y'all

Tom said...

I haven't tried them yet, but someone suggested to me that i get some water shoes for those wet rides.

Karma said...

Hey Rich, I checked out those overshoes you got, they look super functional but how effective do you think they'd be with toe clips? I'd need to find something water resistant (or proof) but that would also work with the steel toe clips on the Vega. Someone mentioned Gore-tex socks but that leaves the issue of soaked shoes which are almost as bad as wet feet.

Also as Chillwill noted the Superflash is sick but I just found out there is an even sweeter Superflash, what you might call a Super-sick flash, or as Planet Bike calls it the Superflash Stealth! Odd considering the idea is to be unstealth, oh well.