Back in the saddle part 2

Yesterday dawned cool and cloudy.. and since it was my "get the hell out of Gumbieville day" I had to stuff the Dri Rider winter liner + new gauntlets and sodium "Chopper" glasses to test in the dark on the way home in to a small backpack before hitting the road to see a mate 90k's away. I put an order in for some rain along the way to test how weatherproof everything was.

So a nice day was had visiting and I left at sunset, as the clouds promised some good rain for testing.

Open face lid was no issue when the rain came 10 k's down the road as my left hand esily covered my nose and cheeks with the gauntlets on.. all good so far.

As it got darker I found the riding glasses to be bloody good.. no glare from oncoming cars and trucks and even as the rain got heavier I could still see the line markings. As it got even darker to full night I could see with no problems at all... well worth the $9.98 investment from Ebay.

Very impressed too with the tyres on the bike in various levels of rain and road wetness.. I felt very confident and mostly dry.. I did only wear jeans after all so I was wet from the knees down.. nothing surprising there.

As I buttoned off for the 80km/h zone into Gumbieville I noted a small pool had built up at the bottom of the jacket where it was bunching up and the easing of wind pressure allowed the pool to drain through to my crotch.. oh well, that's been wet before too. Nothing a decent pair of wet weather duds won't fix.

The worst affected part of the jacket was the top outside pocket.. it was a bit wet inside.. so I won't be putting anything of importance in there.

So, being very happy with the outcome of apparel testing I decided to take a ride today since it was raining around the foothills.. bloody brilliant with hardly any traffic at all.

This time I had the liner out of the jacket and wore my fingerless gloves.. they got a little damp in the light rain and a bit more in the heavier rain. I pulled up at Yangan to check to see if the cool feeling on the front of me was just wind cool or wet cool.. turned out to be slightly damp cool.. so the liner will have to stay in it for future rides if rain is a possibility.

The smells you get on a ride out in the country when it rains are simply awesome.. couldn't smell road kills at all today, fortunately.

All up, I have to say I'm loving being back in the saddle again.