I have never enjoyed riding in the rain.  I've done enough of it to have this kind of prejudice.  One time, thirty years ago, me and Bosco The Bandit left San Francisco eastbound on a clear sunny morning.  By midday, the rains had come upon us around Paso Robles.  The rain continued, eventually all the way to Montgomery, Alabama, where we finally took our rain suits off.  We had to seek high ground in Kingman briefly, and it got so bad in a couple places in Oklahoma that we had to find shelter and set it out. 

It was the kind of rain that forced you off the road just to light a cigarette.  Then it was prudent just to set there and smoke it before going back out into it.  And over the years and along the way, I have ridden from Florida to Michigan and back in rainstorms that spanned most of the states between.  Sometimes it gets utterly Biblical.
 

No matter what you wear, you are going to get wet if you try to ride in the rain.  Hard rain will find a gap in your brand new modern expensive rain suit.  Usually, if it's raining hard, the inside of your helmet gets wet early.  Then it soaks into the gap in your collar, and it will soak through the break in the elastic cuff, or it will start up your pant leg.  Or, probably worse, it will get in your boots.  And you know it's going to somehow get into your luggage and soak most of everything you own.

And that's just the unpleasant part.  After that it gets hazardous and dangerous.  Handlegrips and footpegs get slimy.  You just flat out can't see very well in a hard rain.  The rain is all over your windshield and your faceshield and probably your glasses.  It's much worse than trying to see through a vehicle windshield with the wipers going. 

Then there is the road surface.  I can't think of a highway that improves in the rain.  And some of them get downright slimy,
especially in the early stages before the rain washes all the crap off.  Some highways become long, thin puddles.  Slipping a few inches or so sideways in a cage is pretty scary; the same move on a motorcycle can be fatal.  And your brakes get wet and grabby. 

And, as every longrider eventually finds out, rain turns vehicle drivers into raving idiots, less attentive and careful than is
their usual habit even.  I have no statistics on this, but I am confident more riders are hit in the rain than on sunny days, at
least proportionally.  So now you got crappy weather, disabled sight, a bad road surface, personal discomfort, and bad drivers to contend with.  And, it's dark.

Over the years I have found some creative places to hide from the rain.  Used to was, in Them Bygone Days of Yore, you could drop into a picnic area or a rest area or such as that.  Then you could pull your scooter up under the cover of the pavilion and set the storm out in relative comfort and safety. 

Lately, I have been evicted from such places by the overzealous SWAT troops that have been hired, apparently to keep the areas safe from damp scootertrash.  These armed guards don't seem to be concerned that you are about to drown.  No, they don't even care that the picnickers have abandoned the pavilion because of the rain.  And they sure don't give a damn about your personal safety. Sometimes they are so intent on getting you gone that they won't even give you an opportunity to put your rain suit on. 

Other favorite hiding places in storms include abandoned plazamalls with overhanging roofs or canopies or awnings.  After that, you might find a friendly gas station that doesn't object to your temporary presence.  But, anymore, most of the convenience stores take mild offense at you sitting there dripping on their dry pavement.  Sometimes you can find a deserted business that offers some shelter.  The way the economy is going, there are plenty of
vacant businesses anymore.

Getting up under a bridge is hardly ever a good idea.  The slope is always bad wrong to drop a side stand, and the vehicular traffic continues to whiz by at high speed, often inches from your left handle grip.  And over the years, I have been in too many flash floods under bridges to ever want to do it again.

One time in eastern Wyoming, I got into some serious precipitation. It was so bad that I pulled over under the only tree I had seen in a long time.  Of course it was a bad idea, but I didn't figure that out until the lightning hit nearby.  And trees don't really provide much shelter.  Years ago up in Georgia someplace, I came upon an abandoned revival tent in a rainstorm.  I don't know what it did for my personal salvation, but it sure was a good place to keep me and the bike both dry.

Sometimes you wind up with some pretty interesting companions in these shelters from the storm, usually other riders.  I have some longtime old friends that I met this way.

I was discussing all this with a young person who did not ride the other day.  He suggested, in all innocence and ignorance, that I should get off my scooter and get a damn vehicle.  I smiled, indulgently, as we tend to do when confronted with such illogical, if not totally insane, suggestions.  When he went on to imply that I was too damn old to be riding a motorcycle anyway, I chased him out into the rain.

Dr. Mark Tiger Edmonds is retired St. Leo's University professor and has logged more than a million miles on his motorcycle journeys.  He is the author of the Ghosts of Scootertrash Past and Longrider an eclectic collection of stories about his experiences and encounters on the road.  You can hear Tiger on Cycle Rider Radio Thursday evenings on WFLA540am in Orlando from 9pm-10pm or on cycleriderradio.com.  His books and poetry cds can be purchased in the CurvesAhead.Net online store.