I rode Matilda in to work last night, which is about a 25 mile ride if I stay off the freeway, which I did. Clear sky's nice cool evening, just a beautiful relaxing ride into work. Well around midnight I go check outside and the rain is coming down so hard that it's bouncing when it hits the ground. I ran out to get Matilda, all of about 50 yards and push her under the overhang at work to get her out of the rain ending up soaked all the way through to my under clothes.
The lightning was flashing so frequent that there was just one long unending rumble from the thunder. We even lost power for a few seconds until the generator kicked on.
By about 2 am they started broadcasting flash flood warnings for the whole island. Well I got off work finally at about 7 am and it still hadn't let up. Well I zipped up my leather jacket and fortunately had brought my full face helmet and gloves. Unfortunately as I checked my pannier box's and found my rain trousers missing. Oh well its just a little water no big deal I thought.
Well about 5 minutes into the ride my bottom half was soaked through to the point that I could feel the rain hitting my legs like I wasn't wearing trousers, even though I was, and visibility was only good up to about 50 yards ahead of me because the rain was coming down so hard. Matilda didn't seem to mind the rain at all thankfully and kept on trudging right along.
At about the half way point home there were several people in their cars pulled over as they didn't want to cross a small patch of flooding in the roadway, about 30 feet long covering both lanes. I wasn't about to sit here all day in the rain so I gave it a quick once over and said sure why not. With my feet firmly planted on my footpegs I was just a little over ankle deep in water as I rode through this road pond, I think its going to take about a week to dry out my boots.
Again Matilda didn't fail me she kept trudging right along. As I got about half way up the hill for home Matilda reminded me that I was supposed to fill her with fuel prior to heading home. Fortunately I was able to switch to the reserve without pulling over as the shoulder here was a rushing stream of water, mud, and other assorted debris which I did not want to take the chance of riding through.
I finally got into Wahiawa and stopped at the gas station to top Matilda off. At this point my leather jacket had soaked through and I was now starting to be soaked on my top half too and my legs were starting to feel numb from the cold wind blowing on my wet trouser legs. The only pump open was of course not under the roof and as soon as I finished refueling one of the onlookers fueling up their car under the roof decided to do the usual 20 questions about the Royal Enfield which I politely answered as I couldn't see myself getting any wetter at this point. Rain or shine people love to look at a Royal Enfield.
Upon reaching home I was finally met by my wife who asked me if I had gone swimming on the way home as I was completely soaked through. Given the choice I would prefer the riding to work over the ride back today but it's nice to know that my Royal can handle adverse weather conditions with no apparent difficulty.
Also here is an interesting tid bit for you all. If you hit a large puddle of water straight on at about 30 mph the front fender on the Military model will direct two nice strong streams of water onto the exact spot where your feet are promptly filling your shoes with as much water as they could possibly hold.
Matilda and I will be drying off now and will be looking forward to our next adventure together as every ride on a Royal Enfield seems to be some sort of an adventure even when your doing something as mundane as riding home from work.
Keep on Thumping and splashing along,
Aloha.