Leaf Ride

[emptysea]

I pulled in to the tiny, 4 pump gas station/convenience store in Potosi a little before 3pm. Potosi has as its claim to local fame a brewery. It's a lovely little town and we've visited it and the brewery on several occasions. This would not be one of those times. This was strictly a gas, comfort, and ride planning stop. I did have short conversations with two locals who seemed at once impressed and dumbfounded upon learning of my day's ride thus far and of my route and ultimate destination for the rest of it.



My decision was to ride home via Wisconsin Hwy. 11. I would need one more gas stop, planned for Orfordville, and if I could get there reasonably warm and reasonably dry, I could get make the last 80 or so miles no matter what the conditions were that waiting.

This turned out to be a good decision. My ride across Wisconsin on 11 was fast and uneventful. The cloud cover made it darker than it should have been, but it was also getting toward sunset which wasn't helping. A few weeks ago, I found a pair of shooting glasses on sale at a Farm & Fleet and their yellow-tinted lenses were invaluable for the remainder of my ride. I recommend that you care something like these in your tank bag.

It wasn't until about 10 miles east of Monroe and 15 miles west of Orfordville that it began to drizzle. I had an alternate route that would turn southeast sooner than Orfordville on Highway 81 if it either was raining very hard or not raining at all. This route was modestly quicker, but would potential put me in the rain for longer. If I was already soaked, then the shorter ride made sense, I reasoned. Conversely, if I was dry, it might be worth the risk of taking the angle route home in hopes that I wouldn't hit the rain until I had made up more intervening miles. Since it was raining fairly steadily, but not hard at that point, I decided to follow 11 north a little and then due east on my original route. In hindsight, this was probably a good decision, too.

It was in Orfordville that I made my 3rd and last bad decision. I gassed up there in a steady but light rain. I thought about putting on my rain gear, but the rain wasn't that hard and I was layered in water-resistant gear. Lastly, I was only about 90 miles from my garage. I pulled out onto Highway 11 through "downtown" Orfordville on my way to Beloit and then home. It started pouring just about 5 minutes after I pulled out of the gas station.

"Here we go", I said aloud to whoever could hear me inside my helmet. I was completely soaked through in about 5 minutes of 55mph driving. There was no immediate place to pull off and at that point my heated gear was still doing its thing. Still, I should have stopped and added the waterproof layer. Instead, I rode on. Through the rain and wind.

The wind had really picked up, blowing water off the top of the puddles that seemed to appear in an instant along the shoulders of the road.

I managed to stay warm through Beloit and most of my way to Crystal Lake. I thought about detouring to the nearest interstate, but that didn't seem like a great option because of the increased distance required and because that particular interstate was under construction. Dark, wet, construction zones, and motorcycles seemed to me to be a bad combination.

I arrived at the gas station in Crystal Lake soaked through. Turns out that once you are wet and all your clothes are wet, your heated gear is virtually ineffective. So now I was cold and wet and 30 miles from home when I met my friend in his Camry. Perhaps donning my rain gear now would have helped the rain gear work better, but frankly I didn't even think of that at this point. 30 miles is not that far, even with stop lights. Oh and by the way, this is the first time that I hoped for red lights on a ride. I found that stopping in the rain gave me a chance to get refocused for the next stretch.

Here is a map of the route I actually took from Potosi home.



Here's a pic of the radar shortly after I arrived home...compare to map above.


As I write this, my gloves are still damp in the inside. Since they have electrics in them, the instructions for drying is to hang them. I had them in the garage which probably slowed the process. I brought them inside and figure they'll dry out by morning.

Upon arriving home, I stripped in the garage and started to shake a bit. I laid out my wet gear as best I could. I left the bike in the middle of the garage. I took a long, warm then hot, shower, and wrote down this note to myself: The answer to the question "Should I put my rain gear on?" is ALWAYS "Yes".





12 hours. 400 miles. All for a leaf of one type or another.





Thanks for reading.