Today marks a first for my bike commuting. I woke up, looked the radar pictured below, and said “I’m riding anyway.”

Radar for May 9, 2008 New York City

I learned a few lessons riding in the rain that I’d like to document in hopes that I can help others who might be considering a similar challenge. Let me start off by setting the scene, weather-wise. The temperature was in the low to mid 50’s with a robust wind out of the east-northeast at 20mph. As you can see from the radar picture, the rain wasn’t real heavy but it was steady.

Now let’s move on to what I wore to cope with the rain. My general philosophy was to keep key parts of myself dry and not worry about others getting wet. Starting at the top with my helmet, I put a rain cover on it to keep my head as dry as possible. It worked really well and its bright yellow color made me more visible in traffic, always a good thing. I decided not to wear any eye protection and that was the right decision. It’s much easier to blink raindrops out of your eyes than try to see through rain spotted lenses.

That takes care of my head so we’ll switch to the torso. The temperature was relatively mild so for a base layer I went with a short sleeve wicking polyester shirt and a pair of board shorts. Both of those garments are designed for coping with moisture so I was pretty confident they wouldn’t pose any problems. And they didn’t, the shirt kept me warm enough and wicked away sweat while the board shorts got wet and functioned just fine. Lastly, I wore a lightweight rain jacket. It kept most of the rain off me and I stayed a comfortable temperature by undoing the pit zips. I’m pretty happy with the clothing choices I made and given similar circumstances I would wear them again.

The last decision I had to make was footwear and socks. I considered going with teva style sandals but it seemed a little cool for that. Instead, I wore a lightweight pair of sneakers that I didn’t care if they got soaked. The more important decision concerned which kind of socks to wear. Wicking polyester comes to the rescue again. My shoes and socks got wet throughout but my feet were totally fine. They didn’t get cold at all and were quite comfortable.

All in all, I don’t think I’d change a thing about what I actually wore to deal with the rain. What I would do though is add gloves. My handlebar grips got slippery once they got wet and I think gloves would have improved that situation as well as keeping my hands a little warmer. Everything else I wore worked very well and performed exactly as expected.

You may be wondering at this point what happened once I got to work. It would be a little difficult to get through the day in wet shorts and shoes so I used my waterproof pannier to bring a change of clothes. What I should have brought and didn’t though was a towel and possibly a wash cloth. The lack of a towel wasn’t too much of a problem today because it quit raining before I got to work so I’d mostly dried off by the time I got there. The wash cloth would be handy for wiping my legs as they got a scosh dirty from road spray.

A couple of other essentials that I’d like to mention concern the bike itself. Fenders are a must if you choose to ride in the rain especially on the rear of the bike. That is unless you want an ugly skunk stripe of muck up your back. Another key thing to consider is making yourself more visible. Rain usually means it’s darker than normal so I suggest treating your commute as if it’s night time which means riding with a flashing red light in back and a flashing white light in the front. Anything you can do to help drivers see you is effort well spent.

Other than everything I’ve mentioned so far, the only other advice I could give is slow down a bit. Wet roads are slick. This is critical information particularly for turns, take them about 1/4 of the speed that you normally would. Also, pay special attention to crosswalks and those large steel plates that sometimes cover road construction. They’re like glass when wet so slow way down for them.

I’m glad I finally attempted a rain commute and I hope I’ve helped anyone considering it themselves. If I can do it, so can you!

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