Eau de sump

Phew, what a day for riding. Maybe I should shut my trap and not blog about the joys of riding in the rain. It's not the rain that's the problem - it's the fucking twerps in their Cayenne's that think they can drive up suburban streets at 100mph because "it's a Porsche". God, how I wanted to see one wrapped around a power pole tonight. Preferably on fire.

Here's how I ended up when I got to work.

Everything was wet. My sunglasses kept fogging, so I rode by memory. My calves were covered in mud, my shoes were full of water, I had a greasy stripe right up the middle of my back and I was half drowned from swallowing rain all the way in to town.

It was great.

Getting home was more of the same, except that my light battery gave out before I had left the CBD (never a good look) and I was reduced to licking the lenses of my sunglasses in an attempt to stop them fogging (it works with diving goggles).

The only changes I make when it rains are to carry a fresh pair of white socks (so that I can put on dry socks for the ride home) and to wrap my socks and jocks for the day in a plastic shopping bag (which is another reason why I like plastic shopping bags. Nothing worse than starting the day at work with wet jocks).

One problem with getting wet is that the gear never dries out properly in the locker room at work. The dampness is not a problem - it's lycra, so it doesn't feel horrible when wet, but it does pong. When I got in the lift tonight, I could have sworn that a tramp had been pissing on my clothes. I really felt like an insane, homeless bike rider.

For tomorrow, I am going to experiment with some anti-fog stuff that I have for the car. It will probably eat the plastic lenses of my sunglasses. Ah well, it's time for a new pair anyway.

I should explain - I have an aversion to contacts, so I have sunglasses that have clip on lenses on the inside. They are great 95% of the time, but they do have a tendency to fog, possibly due to the outer and inner lens being in close proximity. Moisture, such as steam from my sweaty face, gets into the gap and precipitates as fog. I hate that. I hate getting big, fat raindrops in the eyeballs at 40kmh even more, so I somehow have to put up with the sunglasses.

As for the Eau de Sump, that's what the water flicking off my front wheel tastes like. If you think about it, the water running off the roads is full of all the nasty gunk from the bottom of your car, especially the engine and gearbox, plus lots of crap from your car tyes. By the time I get home, I feel like I have had a bath with a litre of sump oil and a shredded tyre. Even though I spent an hour getting drenched in the pissing rain tonight, I got home and scrubbed every pore extra hard in the shower. It's the one time when I go in for the big facial exfoliation and all that guff. I prefer my face to smell like dafodils or peaches rather than Valvoline.