Preferring to cycle in the rain/overcast

[SuperHans123]

Couple of pics from today's spin to Mumbles Pier. Not a soul around, bliss.

 

[Slick]

I've always felt I was a bit different to most as for some reason I always enjoy riding in the rain, (which is lucky living in Scotland) for a couple of different reasons. I suspect it's because I worked outside all my life up until around 5 years ago and I miss it, but riding in weather reminds me of the extra challenge that it brings, and I have to say, I love it. I think it focuses the mind, especially on a morning commute, and I've always felt that looking out the window at 5am to see it coming down in sheets and still choosing to get the bike out sets us apart from most.

 

[sleuthey]

Wear overshoes.

I would if I rode in rain often. Funny you should mention them as I was chatting to a colleague on Thurs night who said he got some neoprene ones - apparently they absorbed the water and made his feet really heavy!

 

[sleuthey]

How does muddy silt get in your shoes? Is this off road ?

Basically the rain from above is fine. It's when you ride through big puddles after a down poor, the water has mixed with the dust/mud that presumably comes from the tarmac and tyres and splashes up into my shoes and socks as I have no mudguards.

 

[PaulSB]

The vast bulk of my riding is with friends or my club. Our meet point is six miles from home. If the forecast is poor and it's raining when I'm due to leave I don't go.

Other than that we ride in all weathers. It's a question of the right clothing and accepting on a bike nothing is truly waterproof.

Winter miles count for a lot.

 

[cosmicbike]

I quite enjoy it, but generally when it's only wet. I don't mind raining ,windy or cold, but any combination of the 3 is normally pretty horrid. However, as a cycle commuter sometimes you take whet you get, which was wet and very windy on the way to work tonight, but it should only be cold on the way home.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

Cold, I can deal with because once you get moving you stay reasonably warm. A bit of fine drizzle I can deal with. Proper rain or proper windy - forget it. the bike isn't going anywhere! I'm not a masochist and I don't get any pleasure from being uncomfortable, especially the wet and cold variety.

 

[tyred]

No such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothing.

I often ride in the rain. If I didn't I'd rarely get a chance to ride. All my bikes are fitted with mudguards. I would never buy any frame that didn't have generous clearance for mudguards and wider tyres.

 

[Randy Butternubs]

The best part of going out in horrible weather is when you get home again.

“To enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. [...] For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.” - Herman Melville, Moby Dick

You also get to feel obnoxiously smug about going out while others cry off.

 

[Globalti]

Theres a lot of virtue-signalling going on in this thread. It's as bad as the threads where people boast that they don't want a modern carbon bike and they're perfectly happy, thanks, on their rusty 1965 Luddite Special with noodly steel tubes and a sagging Brooks saddle.

I hate starting out in the rain and hate rain starting during a ride but usually end up not minding it too much and feeling virtuous on finishing.

 

[SuperHans123]

Theres a lot of virtue-signalling going on in this thread. It's as bad as the threads where people boast that they don't want a modern carbon bike and they're perfectly happy, thanks, on their rusty 1965 Luddite Special with noodly steel tubes and a sagging Brooks saddle.

I hate starting out in the rain and hate rain starting during a ride but usually end up not minding it too much and feeling virtuous on finishing.

I started the thread just before going out on a leisure ride in the rain, so no virtue signalling here, it was a genuine post.
As I stated previously, I would probably think differently if I was a roadie.

 

[Slick]

I started the thread just before going out on a leisure ride in the rain, so no virtue signalling here, it was a genuine post.
As I stated previously, I would probably think differently if I was a roadie.

You really wouldn't.

 

[raleighnut]

If I have to go anywhere there's no option, just dress appropriately

 

[SpokeyDokey]

I'll neither set out on a ride or a hike in wet weather - way too miserable to contemplate for someone who is not a SAS hardman wanabee,

Cycling in the rain is truly dreadful as apart from the filth and slippery lanes etc visibility is reduced by the rain itself, spray from motorists and water on my cycling glasses. Not safe enough for me on my age-linked, and rapidly reducing, acceptable risk factor co-efficient.

 

[SuperHans123]

I'll neither set out on a ride or a hike in wet weather - way too miserable to contemplate for someone who is not a SAS hardman wanabee,

Cycling in the rain is truly dreadful as apart from the filth and slippery lanes etc visibility is reduced by the rain itself, spray from motorists and water on my cycling glasses. Not safe enough for me on my age-linked, and rapidly reducing, acceptable risk factor co-efficient.

Pretty much all the reasons I stated at the start of thread why roadies are much more likely to not like it.
Us chicken hybrid riders on cycle paths don't have to deal with most of those things; just the wet, which I really don't mind.