It had rained hard overnight so I was very happy it stopped long enough for me to load the motorcycle and stay dry. I wasn’t in a big hurry to get on the road since the weather system was moving east and I wanted it to go as far as it could before I caught up with it.
I got two solid hours of riding in on wet roads, but no actual rainfall. The thing I’m most grateful for is it wasn’t raining as I went through Indianapolis which must be the road construction capital of the universe. It was a mess and would have been much harder to navigate in poor visibility.
My luck ran out just as I left the north side of Indie. I needed fuel and while I was stopped the rain started in earnest. I took my time, had some other travelers commiserate with me on the miseries of riding a motorcycle on a day such as this one, and got back on the highway when there was a miniscule lull.
Once on the highway the downpour really set in and I wasn’t sure I was going to last 30 minutes, much less 300 more miles. The visibility was terrible as I slowed down and vehicles zoomed past with their spray adding to the visibility problem.
Note to self: when traveling on four wheels and passing a motorcycle in rain be sure to get well ahead of the motorcycle before moving back into the the right lane. When you immediately swerve over in front of the motorcyclist you practically blind them with your spray.
I couldn’t figure out why, but my Nolan helmet was allowing rain into the visor, so I had a coating of drops on the outside and a coating of drops on the inside. Fortunately it wasn’t fogging, but that may be because I was staying fairly calm and wasn’t hyperventilating. When I get scared I can fog a visor in a split second.
After an hour of downpour it became intermittent alternating between downpour and light rain — far more tolerable.
While riding I started thinking of days on the road in terms of how many tanks of fuel it was going to take. The previous day was a four tank day with me starting with a full tank and filling right before stopping for the night. Today would be a three tank day, so that wasn’t so bad. The fuel light was coming on consistently between 167 – 170 and I was stopping around 200 miles.
I lucked out and there was a slight break in the rain for me to get into the Michigan welcome center. They had radar on a monitor and it was clear I would be in rain no matter where I went. After checking the map and motel coupons I decided on Flint which would leave me an hour ride south to Macomb, MI in the morning.
The rain continued and got worse as I approached Flint, but I safely found the motel and got checked in.
Main task of the evening was to try to get things dried out. It had been around 60 degrees during the afternoon so I had my Gerbing jacket on and turned on. When I started peeling off riding gear I discovered the underarm zipper on the right side had leaked on the final leg and my Aerotstich, Gerbing, and shirt sleeve were soaked. No wonder I was cold.
I pulled off my boots and discovered both feet were soaked. That explained why my feet were cold and I’m not happy my boots are leaking. I need to try some waterproofing to improve that situation since I’m sure this isn’t the only rain I’ll see on this ride.
So gear was hanging everywhere to dry out. I think everything will be okay except the boots — they are so soaked I doubt they will dry overnight.
I had carried large rubber gloves with the thought of using them in rain, but had never tried them until today. I pulled them over my leather gloves and up over the end of my sleeves to seal out the rain. They worked incredibly well except the large was huge even over gloves.
I might try medium the next time, but I am so glad I had them with me on a day like this. My hands would have frozen without them and I’m sure I would have had water up the sleeves.
Mid seventies and sunny is the forecast for tomorrow. Woohoo!
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