Respite in the rain? Time to ride

Getting out for a good long ride can be a real challenge during the winter. That’s what I found the first week of the new year when it rained just about every day. I’m not a fan of riding in the rain, so I’m good with waiting til some rain-free weather returns. But this week, on my second day off – my first day off was spent catching up on errands and slowing down a bit – rain was forecast. I woke up early to put the trash and recycle bins out on the curb, fully expecting rain to be on the way. With this expectation, my mind wasn’t geared into doing a ride at all. I started to plan what I’d do with the day, inside, out of the rain. But although it was cloudy outside, it wasn’t raining. Plus it was a little bit warmer than a few recent rides, at about 51 degrees. I checked the rain radar on my Weather Channel app. It always shows if rain is heading in from the San Francisco Bay Area. And if it’s raining big there, it usually makes its way northeast to this area. But when I checked, there were only sporadic small cells of rain in the Bay Area and they weren’t moving northeast. I looked at the hour-by-hour chance of rain in the area and there was at least a five-hour window predicted to have about a 10% chance of rain. And that meant one thing: I was going to ride. I had the time, the conditions lined up favorably, so that was that.

I decreased the pressure in my tires to 90 psi, since I was sure there were still plenty of wet spots on the streets and on the bike path where I was headed. I cleaned and oiled my chain, got my water and food together, and hit the road.

As I rode out, I decided to fully commit to getting to the turnaround point 26 miles away. The black clouds I rode under here and there put extra power in my legs. I figured to outrun any rain they might dump. But I also had to ride carefully on corners when my tires were wet, which seemed to be most of the ride.

Last year I learned the hard way about making turns on the bike with wet tires. I was banging it with another rider. He passed me, I passed him, and we had a speedy little race going. I was too confident on a quick right/left turn, and although the pavement was dry there, I’m pretty sure my tires were wet. And I hadn’t decreased the air pressure in them to give me more traction in wet conditions. So I’m ahead of this guy and really pushing it, too confident on this quick right/left. My weight was way forward over the handlebars and I leaned way too much to the left as I turned right on my too hard, fully inflated, water-slicked front tire. I couldn’t pull out of the turn to do the left turn. Instead, the tire squirted out to the left, the bike went down on its side, and I went down hard onto the pavement on my right forearm and hip which got smacked and cheese grated. Down, I panted on the deck from riding so hard.

Didn’t break anything, but got some serious road rash. Thinking back, it all happened because I was too concerned with speed on that quick double turn. I needed to stay more upright on the bike and minimize the lean on wet-tire turns.

So, lesson learned. For a little while, anyway.

On another recent ride when the trail was mostly dry, but still had some wet parts, I again forgot about what can happen when you want to slightly turn the bike as you ride over a mat of wet leaves. I hadn’t planned on riding over them on this fast descent, since the downhill lane was mostly dry or damp pavement. The uphill lane, however, was a carpet of slick, matted, wet leaves – essentially ice to a road bike rider needing to turn on them.

So I bombed down this descent, feeling pretty good about banging up a peak speed by the end of the downhill a few hundred yards away. But I came around a corner and was suddenly blocked by a group of walkers, filling up the clear and clean downhill lane. I was moving fast and had to go around them riding an arcing turn – over the wet leaves. I didn’t have any time to think, but I knew braking would have made me slip and slap down hard, like last year. I rode through, banking slightly to get back on the clear downhill lane ahead of the walkers. But then – in a millisecond – the front tire slipped a hair, and this was the moment of truth. When you either pull out of the slip in a heartbeat, or you go down in a heartbeat. Fortunately I wasn’t leaning to far either way on the bike, so I luckily pulled out of the slip in the following millisecond. But believe me, as I continued down the rest of the descent, I cooled it. Because I realized I’d just dodged a completely unexpected bullet – having to veer over the wet leaves because it was too late to slow down to avoid them – and a nasty crash could very well have happened.

So with those wet riding scenarios fresh in my mind, this most recent ride was done with much more care on corners. Especially when I saw my front tire was wet. Easy does it, minimum amount of leaning to get through.

On the last stretch home, it really looked like I might get caught by rain in the bank of ominous looking black clouds I saw ahead of me. I rode as fast as I could, and when I made it back to my house dry, and free of road rash, I was just plain glad. All I got when I swung off the bike were some nasty quad cramps. I pounded on them with my fists to, to get the muscles to cool out, and soon I was good to go.

A few minutes later in the back yard I hosed the mud off the bike, and bounced it a bit on its tires to shake off the excess water. My buddy Marc likes to let his bike dry off in the sun after washing it. And after I did the bike hose down at the 51-mile ride in which rain was a constant threat, something else happened instead.

The sun came out. And so my bike dried off in a welcome winter sunshine,  Marc style. It made me smile. It was fitting end to an impromptu, semi-wet ride.

Til next time, remember to pull on a helmet every time you get on the bike. Then keep the rubber side down, ride safely and most of all? Have a blast.

-- Mark Eric Larson