And then judgment day

Thursday the 13th of October 2010

The excitement had built up to a crescendo, but alas the gods had once again conspired against us… torrential rain had arrived on our day of departure. So we did what most bikers do we checked the radar, it didn’t look good massive rain bands were upon us and more on the way. Now everyone that knows me will testify that I really don’t like riding in the rain. It’s not that I don’t like getting my bike wet even though it takes forever to clean my bike, what I really hate is actually getting wet.

So we decided to see if the rain would pass, given we were in Melbourne we thought it would be fine in an hour or two. We settled in and watched another movie (Walking Tall with the ROCK) and waited for the change in the weather. It didn’t come, eventually we thought that we should just bite the bullet and finally left Melbourne around 1:30pm it remained overcast with torrential rain on the radar.

My attire for the day’s ride.

I know what you’re thinking, who cares!!! But hang in there you will understand why I’m telling you this.

Driza Bone coat (from neck to half way down my shins), leather Harley-Davidson jacket with liner, T-shirt, thermal top, Draggin Cargo jeans, thermal pants, Kevlar socks and finally CAT boots.  As it turns out the Driza Bone coat works well on keeping you dry and warm so long as.

1: you’re on a sports bike and all folded up.

2: you don’t have forward controls.

Because I had planned on buying a pair of Oilskin Draggin Jeans before leaving Melbourne I didn’t pack my wet weather pants. Let’s just suggest that was a big mistake as I couldn’t find a pair of Oilskins my size. On my sports bike the only part of me that used to get wet whilst wearing my Driza Bone was a small part of my boots, but due to the different riding position on my Harley, from about half way down my shins got wet. Probably more like drenched, the problem this creates is that when you’re travelling at about 100klm’s an hour the water gets blown up your legs and to what became a very soggy groin region by the end of the day.

Question: How do you know when your feet are soaked?  That’s easy… by the squelching sound you make when you walk, of course… and for further conformation (if needed) it feels like your socks are sliding around inside your boots.

To say that visibility was poor would be an understatement as I couldn’t see anything, as my glasses fogged up and for something completely different water was running down the inside of them and yes it was a little unnerving at times.

Alan’s attire for the day’s ride

 A floral shirt covered by his Draggin jacket, (has Kevlar so he isn’t taking his leather jacket) and finally a wet weather jacket over the top. He also wore (thankfully, the thought of him riding half naked is too much for me to bare) Draggin jeans and wet weather pants over the top. To finish off his ensemble he wore his Doc Martin Boots with little water proof booties (made for cyclists) over the top of them. Okay... Alan's shirt wasn't really a floral shirt.

Whilst Alan got a little wet as you tend to do when its torrential rain being unleashed from the heavens, from my waist down I was completely drenched. Clearly I’m not happy about this turn of events.

 Now for the actual ride, I can’t really describe how lovely the scenery was or the long sweeping bends or the feel of the wind on my face simply because I couldn’t see anything (except the water in my glasses) or feel anything but the razorblade like cuts to my face as the rain kept coming.  As for enjoying the ride all I can say was I looked at some people in cars all dry and warm, as they went whizzing by us and thinking to myself how on earth did I get talked into this, and if I killed Alan could I make it look like an accident and would I get away with it… I’m still working on that one.

When we got into Bairnsdale everything was soaked, my gear sack which was once water proof decided to give up the ghost. The clothes that I was wearing were soaked, my Harley Davidson saddle bags with bin liners leaked. (They are a poor design in terms of keeping bugs and water out, hence the garbage bags). But the day was about to get even better … you see there was no accommodation  in Bairnsdale due to the MotoGP being held that weekend at Phillip Island.

We tried motel after motel we even tried the local caravan park but to no avail. Wet, cold and wildly unhappy we finally stumbled across a pub that fortunately had a couple of rooms left. We gladly took one of the rooms and then proceeded to turn the bathroom into a Chinese laundry or drying room, it was so hot in there that our room ended up being about 38 degrees. Having said that every piece of clothing we owned was hung up to dry in there and was bone dry in the morning.  Just quietly I would hate to see the power bill from that room…. Check out the laundry and my boots, (the photo of my boots was after I had already emptied them once and yep thats water in the bottom of them...



I have two tips for the day

The first is don’t eat something that you know will make you sick the night before a big ride. I had Mexican and as much as I love Mexican the Mexican don’t love me…

The second one is always pack your wet weather gear no matter what.

Song of the day would have to be Spanish Eyes, I have no idea why I put that into my bike riding songs play list but it gave me something else to ponder.

Cheers

a