Riding in the Rain

After work and dinner (AND picking up DH’s rental car for work) we decided to go for an evening ride. It was looking a little cloudy out so we checked the radar map and it looked like we had about two hours before the rain moved in.

I wanted to ride along the lake by the State Park nearby so we turned, once again, to google maps. We decided we could ride down Annewakee Rd. to Riverside Dr. then cut over on Flat Shoals Rd. to Mt. Vernon Rd. We were having a fantastic ride, right up until we realized that at that point Flat Shoals is a DIRT road…. cruiser bikes don’t really do well on dirt roads. So we ended up on Thornton Rd., which is four lanes, heavily trafficked, and pretty fast moving. It was the last place I wanted to be! But, we had no choice really so we merged into the right lane and got up to 60mph as fast as we could. We got passed by one car, but held our own until we got back to slower, more familiar roads.

After that, we decided to head over to the State Park on the roads that we usually take in the car and we would just turn around after we got past the lake. This part was actually REALLY fun! Then we were on our way home. When we stopped at a light, DH turns to me and says, “Hey, looks like we’ll just beat the rain!” You’ve heard of the announcer jinx… that was it!

As we were about to turn onto the second to last street to get home, it started pouring down rain! I mean, pouring down to the point that I could barely see out of the shield on my full-face helmet. I don’t see spectacularly well anyway, so this made me really nervous. I slowed down, way down, dropped into third gear and was just concentrating on safely navigating. The thought occurred to me to pull over, find shelter, and wait it out. However, the radar earlier had shown that once it began it would rain all night, so I figured it would be best to just keep on going. At the next light DH overtook me, much to my relief as then I could follow his tail-light home, making navigation easier. Of course, once we got within 100yds of home, it was bone dry and we were soaked to the bone!

But, we made it home safely! DH said all the way through he was thinking, “Frog Togs, Frog Togs, Frog Togs.” I don’t think we will make it a point to ride in the rain, but sooner or later I think we will be investing in some good rain gear! Squishy boots and wet undies do not make for good motorcycle rides!