I'd just like to say, there are a lot of nice bikes on this thread. I'm glad to see it.

When I first started commuting by bike I remember reading a lot of advice about having a beater bike for bad weather, and so I tried that. Unfortunately over the course of a year in my part of the world the wet days outnumber the dry ones about 2 to 1. Eventually I decided that my rain bike had to be something I really liked. It's nice to see that I'm not apparently not alone in reaching that conclusion.