[Gmachine]

Biggest problem I've had in rain is fogging helmet face shield. If you put something absorbent around your neck and it gets wet, the moisture will be permanent in your helmet and you'll have fogging anytime you close the shield. I prefer no collar. Also, if you have a touring screen, you won't get much water on your helmet while you are on the highway. Just keep moving.

Worst time I've had was on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Speed limit if 45 and the sides of the road have no paint, so you can easily go into tall grass and very soft ground. That's just no fun when your helmet fogs...and there's no place to pull over. It's happened on 2 trips. Scary stuff. Made it through both times OK. At highways speeds, the only pucker moments come when passing trucks or when water is deep on the road. Other than that, just avoid sudden maneuvers and stops. With new tires, you can generally ride at your normal highway pace.

Oh, mind any worn areas of the lane your in where heavy trucks etc have created a low stripe where water is deep. Just avoid those low areas and you won't hydroplane. If you do run in there, keep calm and carry on. Don't panic or jerk the bike around, just steer out of it while steady on power or maybe a little decel, but not a lot.

All good!

 

[Gmachine]

Yes that is also a good point. Cracking the visor can help with that (creates airflow along the inside surface of the visor).

Well...in this particular case, cracking open the shield resulted in rain POURING in on my face and soaking the inside of the helmet. Only happened there, heading north on BRP, I think near Marby? ..and it happened twice...Combination of wind speed/direction, amount of rain and low bike speed...a "perfect storm"? Those are the times you want a double-layer screen or Rain-X. I had neither.

I've been in a lot of rain before and since and always managed OK. Those two times were special.

 

[Gmachine]

Agree and I use MyRadar...but in those days, I think 2000 or 2001? I didn't have a smart phone and there was no MyRadar.

Weather was quite nice when we entered BRP in Cherokee, NC. The 3 of us got split up for a while and the weather turned. I was on my own in this sudden spring downpour and fog. These guys had both told me, "I've never ridden BRP where it didn't rain somewhere." Well, it rained. Oh my!

If the road had stripes on the edges, I think I'd have been fine, but no stripes, fog on these hills and on the shield, hard rain and low light was all conspiring to try to make me ride onto that soft shoulder covered in tall grass where I knew I'd sink down to exhaust pipes and fall over. I slowed way down and tried a lot of quick combinations of ducking under the touring screen of my '99RT and moving the shield and windscreen to various angles to find a way to see. Finally just opened the shield and gave up trying to keep the rain off my face. Ouch, rain hurts on your face! I didn't want to stop because visibility was pretty bad even for cars and I would have been stopped in the road...no shoulder, not that there was much traffic, but it only takes one.

...In cases like this, you just press on and say your prayers. I guess that's why they call it Adventure?

 

[Gmachine]

Don't want to scare you out of a ride in the rain. It's not usually so bad. Even when it is, the ideas above are mostly great.

I always carry rain gear with me. I usually out west in summer, I take a good mesh riding outfit and use rain gear as a layer for cold weather (mountains) as well as rain protection. Layers under mesh don't usually do a lot of good because wind goes right through, but rain gear is pretty much wind-proof, so you get the effect of a normal Gortex all-weather outfit but mesh only is much cooler in summer heat.

Rain gear is pretty handy! It doesn't require a lot of room to store. The other great thing about an outer rain gear setup rather than a waterproof inner layer is that your outer suit isn't soaked. When the rain stops, you freeze as all that water in your outer layer evaporates. Better to have it just blow off you.

Oh, Craig, just one more tip. Don't take photos on your bike in the rain!!! Too many distractions already! Have a great trip.