Last I checked - humans don't melt when exposed to water.

Think of it like a bath in awesome.

....or come here and pin your taint to a rigid trainer setup and endure some "real" weather - Chicago style........so....STFU.

^ Keep in mind, "high-brow" to most Southern Californians is "goatee" to most other folks.

One of the guys on my elite Masters team is in SoCal every week for his job and trains there often. He posted this as an update today - remember - He lives here in chicago

"nice ride in SoCal this AM....very wet but warm...great to be out with ______,_____,____....and, great to be able to harass the guys that didn't come out for the next 5-10 years....FYI, we didn't melt...."

I don't mind the water, I mind the idiots that forget how to drive a car in the rain. I think your chances of getting hit by a car are higher if it is raining. I have ridden in the rain when I have been caught in it but never started out on a ride if it was already raining. If it is raining, I go to the gym and get an indoor cardio workout or use the trainer.

This one did....

I spend a couple weeks in Chicago every year for work. If I lived there I'd be jumping for joy to ride out here too. In ANY weather.

Rain isn't completely risk free, though. I slid out on a downhill recently, not even due to a turn, but because my front wheel hit a patch of slick asphalt sealant they use to fix cracks. Slowed down, but still went down. That would NEVER happen on a dry day.

....wow.......just...uh.....wow....

Reminds me of when i used to live in El Paso and everyone would complain about the humidity when it got to like 50%.

Dude, you owe me another beer for posting this photo again. And I'm keeping track.

i bike to work regardless of weather. (caveat: today i ran.) it is only ~7 miles each way. in my experience, people in so cal don't have a f#@&$%# clue how to drive in wet weather - perhaps due to the infrequency of rain here. exacerbating the situation is the fact that rain is the fact that lots of oil builds up in the road between rains and that roads have very, very poor drainage. i am less enthusiastic to ride in the rain here than i was in ohio for sure. now, the wisdom of starting a thread complaining about rain when a majority of the country is having storms and european airports have been closed for about a week is debatable.

I think this is incorrect. Most people say this but I think the real problem is that SoCal drivers are a bunch of a-holes anyway. That whole 95mph down to 5mph fifty different times during a commute doesn't happen anywhere else in the US. I travel for work and have been in all 50 states and spend a ton of time on the roads in these states. The thing I notice is that people elsewhere are COURTEOUS. Speeding in Iowa is 8mph over the limit. People are respectful and watch the speeds. Here in SoCal I can hop on the I5 and be merging into 90mph traffic that could give a **** about me. People cutting lanes just to gain two spots. It's crazy.

I don't think it's that they don't know how to drive - I think we have some of the BEST drivers out there. It's easy to tool down the freeway in South Dakota - it's way more difficult to navigate 6-lane thoroughfares with multiple exits and hundreds of thousands of cars at break-neck speeds.

There are more accidents in rain because idiots pull the same crap they pull every day but the roads are less forgiving - so those 95mph to 5mph stops take just a little bit more distance in the rain than in the dry - and that nails these idiots every time.

You guys need to remember that when it rains hard out here, houses start falling off of clifs and stuff. It's not just a matter of being spoiled San Diegoans and not wanting to ride in the rain. The roads get very dangerous with cliff runoff (mud and debris in the road) and LOTS of flooding in even a mild rain. It's been pouring for three days. Plus, people out here absolutely lose their minds driving in the rain.

HI-USA Xmas trip? Looks like the weather should improve by then. Day 2 is always the iffyest-- it ranges from nice to black ice to horrible sleet (not likely this year).

edit: doh-- I should read a few posts further down before posting...

Hmmm....you must not travel to Chicago much. My average moving speed during the commute is 85-90mph. It's a 50mph zone on I90 and I get passed like I am standing still. It takes me about 50 minutes to go about 22 miles. You do the math.

Drivers suck everywhere. In 23 years of riding I have steadily seen it get worse - and this is in all places having lived in a ton of them. Saying, "I don't want to ride when it rains because the drivers can't drive on wet roads." is fine....this isn't a safety wizzing match, but to assert that the drivers in rain are somehow worse there than anywhere else is sort of naive and quaint.

To get to the core issue - yes....once again socal riders - suck it up. Rest easy knowing that you ride in possibly the best cycling weather area in the nation. Complaining is human nature but seriously guys and gals.....put it into perspective.

Meh. I rode just about every day in Minneapolis for 6 years, including after the halloween snowstorm, and several weeks where it never went above 0 F, and many nights in the -30 to -40 F range (that's before adding the windchill). I moved to socal to get away from all that.

Luckily this topic only comes up twice a year.

try it sometime. it is very obvious.

I've had just about enough of this abuse and the rain! You can pick on us, but when it's 65 and sunny on Thursday, you'll want to be us. So stuff that into your pipe and smoke it!

My personal experience with SoCal drivers is they SPEED up when its raining almost like "wtf is this wet stuff - must speed home to get out of it!"

If you've lived in socal and commute on the freeways, you'll be greeeted the familiar isolated car-on-the side of the road in the ditch wipeout en route to work.

Even in drizzles. Seriously - it's like a small number of folks can't manage a car at all in the mildest rain down there. I saw far fewer wrecks and slideouts in ice conditions in the Midwest than I do on a <1/4" inch drizzle in Socal.

I can't say that driving in rainy weather is worse in So Cal than anywhere else, but what I can say is that So Cal has more cars than any place in the country. We also get very little rain fall throughout the year so people tend to forget what it is like to drive in the rain.

I agree that So Cal has great weather including winter. So, if I miss a few rides because it is raining so be it. Cycling is just one part of my training. I spend five days a week in the gym as well and lately have only been riding on the weekends.

Make of it what you will:
https://totaltrafficla.com/2010/11/20...s-morning/4688

"This is far from breaking news, but southland motorists once again have proven that they can’t drive in the rain.
The California Highway Patrol is reporting 315 accidents alone between 5 and 9 this morning. Compared to the 43 this time last week, that’s more than 7 fold increase.
In addition to crashes, flooding also played havoc with the roads. In the Newhall Pass, the truck bypass lanes of the 5 had 2 feet of standing water in the roadway. The 10 freeway at Santa Anita was flooded out for a while."

Hmm...I c....good thing we just have snow storms. I wouldn't want to deal with that dangerous rain.

I guess in essence for you guys the sky IS falling....