Reasonable point, but this gets at something specific I was trying to capture with my original post. I'm not just praising bikes that I CAN ride in the rain. I'm praising bikes that are made to ride in the rain.

I actually do have one bike that may as well be made of sugar for how willing I am to expose it to water. I also have bikes that don't have fenders, some of which really can't have fenders. And I have bikes that are limited to skinny tires. And then there's the issue of rim brakes.

What I'm getting at is that there are two approaches to a rain bike: (1) a bike that you're willing to treat like a rented mule and expose to anything and everything, and (2) a bike that is built from the ground up to shine in the rain. Many people will argue that bikes are meant to be ridden and that in the final analysis all bikes should belong to the first category. I can go along with that. I even feel a twinge of shame about owning a pampered beauty queen in spite of how many alternatives I have available. I still have a dozen bikes that I'd be willing to ride in the rain, but I've got two that are absolutely built for it. (One of those isn't a commuter, BTW.)