Today I purposefully rode my bike in the rain. I've ridden in the rain a couple of times, but not on purpose. The two previous times I just happened to get caught in a downpour. Today, however, with my car in the shop and no other way to get to work, I had no choice but to ride in the rain. If it had been a torrential downpour, I would not have ridden, but it was a light rain.
I had to go to the post office on the way to work to mail off 4 parcels, so I had a bag hanging from each side of the handlebars, each with two of the boxed parcels. When the wind would pick up a little, these would knock into my knees and nearly throw my pedaling off. So that was interesting.
I was wearing a zippered sweat shirt over a t-shirt, and I noticed as I was riding in the rain that it seemed like a profuse amount of water was coming down my face, and it was, of course, dripping onto the sweatshirt - which I didn't think much of until I got to my final destination, removed the sweatshirt and discovered I could have wrung it out because it was so saturated in the front, and of course, my t-shirt was a little wet in spots.
So... even though I have prepared for summer riding on the bike, I have not prepared for fall/winter - such as it is in Los Angeles. Still, I need some waterproofing, and my ears got very cold. So I purchased a balaclava from Ebay, and I'll get some full-fingered riding gloves and also a rain slicker, and maybe some rain pants. All things needed for future events anyhow...
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