California drought

Same up here east of Sacramento, it rains and rains and rains. This is my bike after a commute:

You can feel like a kid again on one of those. Errands can turn into lots of fun. This is one of my "roads" when heading east:

Now imagine that after several days of hard rain. It is surprising, while even SUVs and trucks with monster tires become stuck you can get through on a mountain bike with ease. Of course you need a shower and a new set of clothes afterwards.

I've had rides where I was tempted to step into a hot shower and _then_ take my clothes off.

I think the worst experiences of my life all involved riding motorcycles in cold rain. I don't plan on doing that any more.

I usually have to take them off in the garage and later clean the garage. The bike looks way dirtier than in the picture when I reach paved roads. To the point where you cannot see the front derailer anymore. The last couple of miles on the way back are paved and when wet that cleans the bike to some extent. Cameron Park Drive is always a bit embarrassing because that's where I step on it and then my rear tire flings all kinds of muck onto cars behind me. Mud, grass clumps, horse poop ...

You can get cold on motorcycles. Not so at all on a mountain bike. My wife can't understand it but even when it is 40F outside and drizzles I take off in shorts and T-shirt. Feels cold for 30 seconds max, then my "engine" reaches operating temps. I ride pretty fast on trails so my body stays warm all the time.

I already did that when living in Germany where it's more like Minnesota. A neighbor cranked up the heater in his car when he passed me. He said he started to shiver just seeing me in a T-shirt. It was somewhere around 25F.

El Dorado Hills and Folsom have some nice saloons with an outdoor bar. When I have to pick up something for business there or sometimes just for fun I do a 30-35mi loop and drink a Guinness from tap at their outdoors bar. In shorts and T-shirt. This is one of my favorites, happy hour starts at 3pm, fits perfectly:

The good old days are ... right now.

freezing rain hitting you forehead while riding a bike is probably as much fun as being repeatedly stabbed in the brain with an icepick

-Lasse

Of course, none of that flungdung hits you.

We had big plastic fenders on our off-road motorcycles, with like 3" clearance to the wheels. That helped a little.

Nowadays, I sit on the leather seats in my 4wd Audi, and maybe roll down the window a couple inches if I want to get closer to nature.

Snow is nicer stuff. It's, like, clean and white. Usually.

Had to run down to Tucson yesterday, AZ79 down thru Oro valley was so wet I had to slow down to 70MPH >:-} ...Jim Thompson

Been there, mostly in the Netherlands. Nowadays I ride with a helmet that has a top visor, a sweat band below that, and below the sweat band are protective glasses. In winter the yellow ones that increase the contrast a bit. That way only very little rain reaches the skin. Fogging up of the glasses is a problem but only during stops.

Surprisingly very little. Most ends up on the wide bottom tube of the frame.

It'll take another decade or two until the bicycle industry understands that. Until they at least provide some mounting eyes.

Hey, you can still see blew in the jeans. I also usedd to ski in jeans. Cause a lot of head shaking with the ritzy crowd in their designer ski suits.

I was skiing too fast as usual, on the 4th of July, and got into a gully with a muddy stream at the bottom, funneled down and couldn't stop. I crashed, did a worm turn in the mud, and came up skiing on the other side. Sheer luck, no skill involved, but the bystanders were impressed. My downwind side was coated with mud, just in time for the BBQ on the deck with 500 other people.

It's hilarious to see the Texan couples, in their $1200 outfits and $800 skis and $500 boots, clutching one another in terror as they tumble off the chair lift. Jeans are fine unless it's really cold and snowing hard.

I know Certain Parties that always ski in shorts.

You're right, these are the good-ole days.

Get a pair of Powder Pants. Surprisingly they keep you warm on a cold day. Cheers

My wife's mom has an outdoor shower, (house is on cape cod.. even better.) It's wonderful... I should put one in here.

George H.

Sure, I have those, but it's a nuisance to take all the stuff out of your jeans and stash them in unfamiliar zippered places in ski pants. It's easier to just go in the jeans.

I crashed on a feature at Sugar Bowl and lost my nice red Nikon camera. Got it back three days later... someone turned it in.

Nice! I was once drafted into an informal soccer team and I don't have the foggiest about soccer, not interested at all in it. So here I was, clumsy, people yelling at me, and I didn't even know the rules. Towards the end of the game I ran after the ball, slid out, hit the ball somehow, it rocketed over my head and whizzed past the stunned goalie at high speed ... *THWOCK* ... tons of cheers. I had miraculously sent it into the correct net. My clothes looked like after a serious mountain bike accident.

I always mountain-bike in shorts but I don't belong to Certain Parties :-)

Long jeans are just not very comfortable doing that plus the body reaches operating temps within 30 seconds anyhow no matter what the clothing is.

It's amazing how many people are missing them. "Yeah, sounds like real fun, I'll join you one of these days". One of these days, like grandpa Kettle. Some have nice Cannondale bikes in the garage and still procrastinate forever. Some day a health episode will strike them and game's over.

Stretching denim must waste a lot of energy. Springy shiny stuff looks fru-fru but probably returns most of the energy.

We'll all get old and worse, but we may as well be as crazy as possible in the interim. I know 50 year olds who act like frail invalids.

Mathematically, the older you get the more risks you can take!

No one is interested in observations by a functional troglodyte. Some science: