Ride from hell, but I made it back! - Motorcycle-Journal Forums

DS06C50T · 01-15-2006, 01:18 PM

Had to happen eventually... and yesterday was the day! I did a 350-mile roundtrip, my longest yet. And here's the caviat: It rained during the parts with the worst roads.

WOW!!! What a learning experience! I started out fat, dumb and happy with cold but clear weather. Weatherman said rain. Didn't look like it to me; and those guys are ALWAYS wrong, right? Oops.

The cold I got used to; got comfortable numb and the first 50 miles was just fine. Then it started. The light drizzle on the flatlands was "ok"; I dealt with it accordingly. But it's the "coming down in sheets" while I was at the summit of the mountain pass that sucked! Gotta admit, I was scared there for a while. I wanted to exit or pull off somewhere with shelter, but there was none to be had.

The bonus was my glasses and inside of the visor fogging up! What a delight. I cracked the visor open a bit to ventillate, that helped the fogging up, but got water all over my glasses eventually. I limped thru at about 35mph and finally made it down the mountain safely and successfully. I pulled off into a gas station, wiped my helmet, face, visor inside and out, and glasses.

Then it hit me: my dang feet were SO cold because I was wearing my work boots. For normal riding, they've been fine. What I overlooked was that they are ventillated, not full upper leathers! My feet were SOAKED!!! (cue the squishy sound wet shoes make on linoleum!).

I still had about 70 miles to go to make my 11:00am appointment. I toughed it out. I got hailed on for about 10 minutes on the way there, and got PELTED by hail for about 5 minutes on the way home. Man, that stuff hits like a BB gun!

I was none-too-happy to finally see clear skies as I headed for home on the last 50 miles or so. A hot meal and a couple of beers returned feeling to my extremities, and I'm none the worse for the wear and tear. Wiser (some) on the following accounts:
1. don't believe the local weather man, but believe the AOL weather report;
2. GET RAIN GEAR!!!;
3. the stock saddlebags aren't water-tight (I had only soggy clothes to
change into, so I just stuck with what was already soaked!); and
4. Thank god for hot coffee (double shot espresso) at Starbucks!

Cheers,

PS- BTW, the bike rode/performed very well given the adverse circumstances, marred only by this riders' still limited abilities (just turned 2,000 miles on the odometer and it's my first time riding....EVER!). That bike was rode hard and put away WET (and filthy, too) and it performed wonderfully.