Rainy Ride in to Work

The weather forecast called for rain showers in the morning, clearing at noon. A quick look outside made it seem pretty benign in terms of rain chances so decided to ride in with Gretl. Had all the rain gear on and I did get showered on for a few minutes during the commute but it was not bad at all. The bad part was the cagers who either get real timid or real aggressive during rain.

Got off Arapahoe road soon as I could and took Peoria to Orchard and although I was slowed by school traffic and slow cagers, it was better riding than on Arapahoe Road.

Rain gear came through with flying colors, specially my new gaiters which prevented rain from running down into my boots from my overpants. Everyone at work, specially my fellow-coworkers who own bikes were surprised that I had chosen to ride in instead of driving my cage as they did with theirs. There were kudos expressed by them, although one mentioned that I was skirting that fine line between stupid and brave by riding in the rain.

The point is however, when they drove in earlier, it was really raining hard. When I rode in, after 0730am, it was a light sporadic shower type of rain. I knew the roads had been thoroughly washed of its usual oily scum and such by the rains from last night so I was pretty comfortable with the traction available. I had ridden in to work last night and on the way back it started raining pretty hard when I was less than a few blocks from the house so I lucked out there.

I did ride slower than usual of course and took turns very gently. No sense tempting fate either eh?

Pic below is a snap of the storm that went through Denver today, it was clearing SE Denver by the time I got on the ride so all I caught was the tail-end of the rain.