Riding in heavy rain is...a challenge - Motorcycle-Journal Forums

AwwsChwA · 10-28-2004, 12:57 AM

Ok, this is gonna be long, cuz I'm gonna share a few tips that I figured out today while riding in a nice heavy San Diego rain for the first time. I only took the bike cuz the car was in the shop. It wasn't raining when I headed off to work, but it got really really wet about halfway down the freeway.

First of all, if you're not really comfortable with your bike yet...that is, if you find yourself having to concentrate on anything regarding the motorcycle itself rather than focusing all your attention on the traffic and surroundings, don't ride in the rain. Wait until you've got full control of the bike and you can predict what it will do in any situation. Riding in the rain requires absolute 100% attention to your surroundings. You're riding on slick concrete or asphalt that's full of potholes, lane dots, non-straight grooves, and any other random objects. You're moving at high speeds. If you make any sudden move like a quick swerve or turn, bam, you're on the ground and no longer riding...now you're skidding at high speeds.

I know that sounds exaggerated, but that's what I learned today. I rode to work on the I-15 here in San Diego while we got a pretty good dumping of rain. My first thought was that I had to keep the bike upright at all times to keep myself off the ground. That's not entirely true, although common sense tells you that, if you lean over on slick ground, the bike will slip out from under you. So, I figured that turning the front wheel was the best way to maneuver. NOT a good idea. When I turned the wheel just a couple of degrees, I could feel the whole bike start to slide around. I learned after a few white-knuckle maneuvers that the best way to change lanes at speed is to keep the wheel perfect straight, hold your body as vertical as you can, and press down on the appropriate handle just hard enough to make the bike drift slowly to the direction you wanna go. It's still a really creepy feeling, but it's the best way to go.

At one point it rained so hard that I got scared and pulled onto the shoulder and limped along at about 35mph. I was really lucky that I didn't get stopped, but I have a feeling that a cop would have been sympathetic.

Your disc brakes are about half as strong in the rain. Obviously, this is becuz water gets directly onto the rotor(s). Keep that in mind. I also found it much easier to control the bike when I was in the lowest possible gear for a given speed. For example, I'd ride at 50mph in 4th gear at around 5k rpm instead of cruising in 6th. It keeps the engine in a more responsive power band.

Another thing that helps is to ride in the tire track of a vehicle ahead of you. This is basically impossible in a heavy rain, becuz you're several seconds behind the car and by the time the tire tracks are that long, they're gone. But, at lower speeds where your following distance is shorter, this is useful.

And on a more no-brainer note, don't wear jeans while riding in the rain. They become quite soaked and thus make the ride very uncomfortable. I learned this the hard way as I have a rain jacket, but no rain pants.

Oh, and one last thing. Another incentive not to ride too close behind someone...if you get too close, the tire spray ahead of you will whip up underneath your helmet and give you a nice rain-n-road-grit shower. I know this is all very obvious for the veteran riders here, but hopefully there's some other rookies here like me who can benefit by having this knowledge before they have to learn it they way I did.