Riding to work and rain

I wonder how many aspiring ride-to-work day first-timers woke up to the sound of rain coming down and thought, “Well I’m buggered if I’m going to ride in that!”

When I opened a bleary eye this morning—already late—to peer out at rainy skies, my first thought was, “Damn, I’ll have to clean the bike if I ride in that!” Do I have my priorities wrong?

By turns, Melbourne weather can be kind or nasty to cyclists. Condtions may be:

• rainy (which sometimes makes bad things happen)
• cold and foggy
• cold and enjoyable
• just about perfect
• extremely bad (but always short-lived)
• autumnal perfection
• bloody marvellous mid-winter
• surprisingly miserable in spring

And you know what? I wouldn’t miss any of it.

I’ve said before that bike commuters become weather nerds almost by necessity. So here’s my big tip for new bike commuters: the BoM rain radar is your friend. I can’t count the number of times I’ve checked in on the radar then decided to hang around for 20 minutes and let rain blow over, or decided to hit the road immediately to stay ahead of a storm. You see, I really don’t mind riding in the rain—but why get wet if you can avoid it? I mean, you’ll just have a whole lot of gunge to wash out of your chain afterwards.

Oh yeah, if you can make sense of it, the Doppler wind radar can help you work out if you’ll be facing a headwind.

But in general, don’t let the weather forecast influence your decision to ride—unless the words “Gale Warning” appear more than once!

More on related topics

• Riding through a stormy aftermath
• Some investigation required
• Autumn cycling: the best, the worst
• Real commuters ride in the rain
• Wet day victims