Originally Posted by lhbernhardt

If you want to ride at all in the Pacific Northwest, ya gotta love riding in the rain. The saying up here is, "there's no such thing as lousy weather, just lousy equipment and clothing." As long as you know how to stay warm even when you're wet, you'll be just fine. IMHO, we PNW cyclists are among the toughest, hardest cyclists in North America because we always ride when it rains (we really think nothing of it, it ain't no big thang, we don't cancel rides when there's a 20% chance of rain like in California), and the snow here is not heavy enough to preclude cycling. Heck, I have ridden the 17 to 20 km to work in a foot of snow on my fixie with 23mm tires. A little tricky going down the steep hills near my place with the back wheel totally locked up, the bike slowly accelerating down the hill, and unable to apply the front brake because then I will crash, but I'm too tough to care...

So traction in the rain on skinny road tires is not an issue. Yeah, you have to be careful on the turns, especially going over painted stripes in the road. And you have to be careful in the summer, when the roads are finally dry, and then it starts raining. The oil rises to the surface in the first 15 minutes, and that's when it might get slippery. Once the roads have been wet for awhile, traction is fine. You can test how slippery the roads are by riding out of the saddle on the climbs and seeing if your rear wheel slips.

L.