Are you confident riding in the wet?

[Teflon]

For me, it depends on the tyres i have on.

[Biff]

I'm a perv (no shock there), I love riding in the rain. Heavy rain though. Not that light drizzly stuff that clings to your visor. As long as I've got my water proofs on so I'm dry and warm, grrrrrreat.

Fresh rain on greasy roads is a bit sphincter clenching though.

The rain on my helmet reminds me of the noise you hear in a tent when camping.

[NhuanH]

Wot I sayed.

You're speling woz perfick.

Hey! I thought I had the whole ESOL thing freehold round these parts The anti-Grammarian, if you please.

i've got my upbringing on my side...

[Jeremy]

I'm use to riding in the rain on roads with oil slicks all over them so it doesn't worry me too much. I dislike riding though when it rains so much that you can't see the white divider line on the road.

[Pwalo]

Yes. Practice.

[zadok]

I don't mind the wet weather, but I slow down and don't lean into corners so much.

[Motoracer]

I go through the following cycle.

1 - Being a pussy.
2 - Being confident.
3 - Being cocky.
4 - Crash!
5 - Start from one again.

I gotta get out of this cycle and know how to race on the edge with out going further than step 2...

[Big Dave]

I go OK in the wet - just slower and more upright.

[pritch]

Just did a group ride (Ulysses) to Waingaro and back. Wet roads, some very, nearly all the way up from New Plymouth and rain most of the way back. The bit across from Ngaurawahia to the hot springs looked like it might be fun in the dry but it was a bit tense in the wet; very winding and quite slippery.
We all had times where the bike sort of did its own thing...

Which is my main problem with trips in the rain, you just can't relax at all.
The good news is that you get much better fuel consuption figures :-)

As an aside we got pulled up by a cop who pointed out that he had clocked one of the group at 126kph but he didn't know which rider it was.
He appraised us of the views of society regarding motor cyclists (nothing new there) and the fact that he objected to scraping up raspberry jam from the road. Fortunately everybody managed to look contritre and kept their collective mouth shut. When he had said his piece he left and we proceeded in a relatively sedate manner. I should point out that the group was not travelling at 126 in the rain, I suspect tail-end charlie may have been playing catchup. 100 to 110 was more normal depending on the degree of damp.

[Wolf]

The wet road is not really a problem - I just reduce speed and allow more for braking, be cautious applying the brakes etc.

Visibility is the issue for me - not so bad in light to moderate rain but heavy downpours are awful. I'm used to looking quite a distance ahead so sudden drops in visibility are disconcerting.

I'm also mindful that I am less visible to others as well.

Moderate to heavy rain at night is an absolute bastard - rotten visibility compounded by the "silver curtain" - the wall of water reflecting the headlamps straight back at you. As the raindrops are bigger than fog droplets, a lot more light is reflected back.

[ManDownUnder]

Yes - confident enough in my own abilities to read the road surface and conditions, and ride within acceptable bounds so I stay bubble side up.

Experience... years of it.

I don;t claim to be able to race in the wet- I can't race at all... but I ride on the road - and I am good at it.

Experience... nothing beats it.
MDU

[TonyB]

Strangely I prefer riding when it's bucketing down to riding when it's just drizzling, or even if the road is mostly dry with wet patches. I HATE riding in the ultra-fine misty drizzle we get down here in Canterbury- very hard to see, if you forget to pledge your visor it just builds up and it's like trying to see through a windblown lake LOL.

I definitely ride better on a wet road if I've already ridden some distance in the dry and am in 'the zone', rather than starting the ride in the wet. Guess it just proves it's all up here

[ManDownUnder]

...if you forget to pledge your visor...

Pledge?? Gotta try that - ta!
MDU

[Ixion]

Pledge?? Gotta try that - ta!
MDU

Works well, except that at night in VERY fine rain, it tends to cause starring, cos instead of tiny drops on the visor that you can look round, the water spreads out and makes a big flat drop. But once you get a bit more rain the water forms a sort of sheet and it's easy to see again. I use it on the windscreen blade too.

[Lou Girardin]

It's like a cold swim, OK once you're in. If I have to ride in the rain, I prefer it on the open road. I can do without it in the 'burbs.