Don’t worry: let’s face the rain

We all know the classic motorcycling day: we look out the window, the sky is blue, no clouds, it’s not cold. Automatically that faint smile prints itself on our lips and our instinct urges us to take the bike keys in hand.
As beautiful as the autumn season is, sudden downpours often lurk with it. At the thought of getting wet from head to toe our enthusiasm wanes and, demoralised, we sometimes give up riding. Do you ever check the weather before going out? I always do. I do it to prepare myself properly.
How many times have we said, “They say rain, let’s do it another time?” We give up because rain combined with motorcycling sometimes intimidates us, but I have had to learn to deal with it and I guarantee that on a motorbike even rain has its charms.

REMEMBERING MY JOURNEY FROM NORTH TO SOUTH

Whenever it rains I can’t help but remember my first long motorcycling trip across Italy from north to south. From Lombardy to Puglia, region by region without ever taking the motorway. After that trip I decided that all my next trips would be without a motorway. You are probably wondering why, right? I’ll answer you: I currently ride a naked bike (Kawasaki Z650) and being poorly sheltered from the wind despite the small windscreen, on the motorway I soak it all up and physically it drains a lot of energy. The riding position is different from usual and in the long run it becomes tiring as you have to get as low as possible on the bike to aid aerodynamics. Apart from that, I would also lose all the unfamiliar sights and the thrill of adventure, of difficult roads, of the unexpected.

I also want to add that not taking the motorway satisfies me, it makes me proud. With the motorway we can all get everywhere and it would be taken for granted. Many people to whom I used to tell about my stages were enthusiastic and only changed their faces when I pointed out that I got there without a motorway.
Loaded like a mule for a three-hour journey, it took me five hours on internal roads and this aroused astonishment, not to say admiration.
I feel like a traveller and I ride in a touring style. It means that I ride my motorbike, adapt to the rhythm of the road and only ride if I feel like it and circumstances allow it. In this way I can capture every single centimetre of a landscape, without hurrying and without neglecting the details.
For me, the journey is about discovering places, getting to know people by asking for information, stopping to take a photo as a souvenir. On a journey, the arrival should not be a destination, but a goal to be reached. On the motorway this is almost impossible and so I decided to avoid it.
But back to my recollection: out of ten days on the road, I spent seven of them in the rain, and as my first trip as a newly licensed driver I obviously couldn’t ask for better.
Rain of all kinds. From the light, almost imperceptible drizzle to the worldwide deluge. After hundreds of kilometres travelled on consecutive days, I was no longer driving, but gliding on water.
I remember that in Abruzzo at one point on the road I was enveloped by a fog that was actually not fog but rain in the form of clouds. So hard was it raining down from the sky that with power it bounced up from the ground and created steam. You know waterfalls? It was the same. I was driving under an imaginary waterfall and couldn’t stop, there was no shelter anywhere.
What can you do in such a situation other than face it? Give in to despondency? Absolutely not!
Those kilometres cost me so much effort and concentration that, tired and cold, I was beginning to hallucinate. In the puddles I could see fish, even though I was driving over a bridge through a forest! According to the warning signs, I might have encountered wild boar, deer and bears…but certainly not fish!
Unforgettable too were those few cars that came towards me. I could hear their thoughts: “Who is that crazy woman under the deluge?”
In my fluorescent yellow rain jacket I looked like a traffic light in the middle of the greyness. After all those kilometres and days as a wet (but not lucky) biker, the rain had now become my element and accompanied me always and everywhere. I began to enjoy it and in the morning when I woke up and didn’t see the sun was the norm. My bike’s time display and odometer had stopped working because of too much water and humidity.
Without the odometer and without the gear counter I initially felt lost. Used to watching the gears on the display since my first driving school lessons, I was struggling to adjust and change them with just the sound of the engine. However, thanks to the rain, I also learnt to ‘listen’ to my bike.

HOW TO PREPARE FOR RAIN

Let’s take a good look at what a rainproof kit consists of:

• Waterproof jacket and trousers. Alternatively in the form of a one-piece suit. They are worn over our normal technical clothing. I chose jacket and trousers divided. I find them more comfortable to wear and in the event of a toilet emergency I get undressed sooner. Depending on the level of rain, I can decide whether to wear both garments or just one.
  A tip when buying: make sure the jacket has as few fastenings and seams as possible. The more seams there are in the fabric, the more likely it is that water from the rain can seep in and get you wet.
  There are different types of rain jackets with different price ranges. Buy a jacket that is not only waterproof, but also breathable. This way you will avoid the ‘plastic bag’ effect and will not sweat.
  Another practical expedient is a jacket with a high collar, which tightly closed and close-fitting will prevent water dripping from the helmet from slipping inside the jacket and wetting the clothing (I speak from experience!).
• For trousers, on the other hand, which are also waterproof and breathable, I recommend a well-fitting instep closure that covers the shoe well and does not flutter in the wind, preventing the fabric from catching on the bike somewhere.
• Glove covers and shoe covers. Both accessories are worn over normal technical clothing. They are useful, but not indispensable. They come in handy in case of sudden rain. Suitable for light rain in the city centre, perhaps on the way home to work. For a long trip, on the other hand, I directly recommend a waterproof goretex boot, and the same goes for gloves. I wear TCX Aura Plus WP boots that passed the waterproof test with flying colours. I found my feet submerged in water and they stayed dry.
• For a trip, in my opinion, you have to choose clothes that are not only technical but also comfortable. The glove covers, for example, swamp the hands and you have less feeling than usual (a bit like winter gloves to be clear); even the shoe cover, compared to the shoe itself, is less snug and therefore more slippery. However, it is a matter of habit, opinions may vary.
• Pinlock© visor. It will have happened to everyone at least once to stop because the visor fogs up in the humidity and you can no longer see anything. The Pinlock© is a silicone visor and is applied to the inside of the helmet visor to prevent fogging. Once applied, there is no need to remove it. You can buy it at any motorbike accessory shop or online.

Rainwear, besides being waterproof and performing the task of keeping us dry, is also important in terms of safety. Thanks to its colours, usually yellow or neon green with reflective inserts, it makes us clearly visible in the greyness that surrounds us.
That said, it is enough to equip oneself with a minimum of clothing and to pay a little extra attention when driving. In the wet, driving is slightly different; you have to calculate distances well and anticipate timing by avoiding sudden braking.
I hope my story and my little tips will be useful to you and will come back to you as soon as you see clouds. Then all that remains is to get ready, enjoy the rain and smell the wet air that smells of earth.
Because bad weather is not the rain, it is what we go through without riding.