Originally Posted by As You Like It

I'm one of those bike dorks as mentioned in the humor thread who keeps her bike in the living room. Anyway, when I get home from a rain-ride, I tend to pitch off my dripping clothes, wrap a towel around myself, and get some rags to start drying off my bike. My husband finds it intensely funny to see me pottering around the living room, towl around my body, towel around my head, squirt bottle of Simple Green in hand, bike set down on spread out newspapers, tending to my prized machine. I've no objection to cleaning my bike--I have to do it about once a week anyway under normal conditions. It's kind of like cleaning and lubing my sewing machine--picky, meticulous work that pays off in the end. Both machines tend to get noisy and run funky when they're due for a good cleanup. The improvement is gratifying.

I LOVE riding in the rain, especially if the rainstorm is the breaker for a massive hot spell. You can ride hard without overheating, and the tires make a pleasant shooshing noise on the wet pavement. I've noticed since switching from riding a mountain bike to a road bike that my tires throw less mud up on my face, so it's much more pleasant now. Another cool thing about riding in the rain is that people who don't do it think you're well hard on account of going out in all weather. They're all like, "OMG, don't you get cold?" "Can you see okay?" "aren't you afraid you'll slide and wreck?"

Plus, getting all filthy appeals to the little hooligan tomboy inner child in me.