zacster

I'm coming to Seattle next week and I've been checking the forecast and it looks like rain. Not just on one or two days, but the entire week. My entire reason for going was to cycle around, and I'm not interested in doing this in the rain the entire time.

Now I know that Seattle has a reputation for being somewhat moist, I've lived there myself, but in mid May you usually have a good chance of decent weather. If this forecast persists into next week I may just postpone the trip. Maybe I could do it in June instead.

I was looking around in my basement for something just the other day and one thing I found was the fenders from my Austro Daimler that I bought when I lived there. The bike was stolen in 1981 from my apartment on Capitol Hill, but I had taken the fenders off for the summer. I never again purposely rode in the rain, although I've been caught in the rain countless times, and the fenders have never been used again. I even offered them to a BF'er but never heard back.

I'll keep checking the forecast as I really do want to go.

paulypro

Yeah don't let the forecast discourage you. Springtime in Seattle is apparently next to impossible to actually predict, so days that show raindrops are often 100% or 80% dry, and sometimes the days that just show a sunshine are the days it rains most of the day. Pretty much have to just visually check it day of usually. The forecasts for here are generally ****e (but I still check them...) I tend to pay attention more to the temps than the rainfall prediction. If they show a 0% chance of rain they're often right, and if they're calling 100% chance they're probably right. It's just when it's somewhere in the 10-90% chance when they are almost always wrong!

Some days it might rain for 10-20 minutes, get everything pretty wet, then dry off in an hour or so. This is pretty typical spring weather for us. Then again we do frequently have a week of light rain & wind during the spring months that keeps everything wet 'round the clock. We've been known to enjoy some snowfall in May occasionally. Seems like it's warming up now, so if you can stand a chance of a little dampness, you should be good. One can procure a simple clip on fender for about $15 locally at REI if needed & that will help... The rainfall we're talking about is generally very light, but can be persistent at times.

If you can hold off until June, you will have a better chance of avoiding the rain. We tend to have later seasons here I think.

mp123

Don't despair, it's not going to rain all day everyday for a week. This time of year it almost always clears up sometime in the afternoon/evening and it doesn't get dark until close to 9. You might see a little rain some days but hardly a washout or anything. Now if you were talking about November/December that's another story... The most rain free time is mid-July to mid-August, outside of that you have to be a little flexible but it won't be too bad this time of year.

Shifty

If you want more assurance of dry weather you'd be better off coming in July, August or September. It's just the way it is in May.

Wicker

Your thread title worried me but it's not that bad! It's not going to rain all week ... I've found that some weather sites show "rain rain rain" when others show "occasional showers". It will (almost) certainly sprinkle or shower at some points next week but unless postponing the trip is easy/cheap to do, you may want to come anyway and bring a light jacket. I think spring and fall are the best times of year here because summer is just too hot and bright for my tastes. Yech.

zacster

Thanks all for the encouragement. I lived in Seattle for 8 years and what I remember is the fall and winter being constantly gloomy, but never a heavy rain. I only remember a few days where the rain came down really hard. You just learned to live with it.

OTOH, when I was last in Seattle we had some of those bright days where it looked like you could reach out and touch Mt Rainier, but that was August.

I debated whether I wanted to go in May or June and I figured May was safe and I really needed to get away. I'll have to bring something to wipe the bike down with I guess.

If you see an older guy (mid 50s) on a Kuota Kredo riding along say hello.

BengeBoy 

Zacster, I'm a big fan of the Weather Service's hourly weather forecast.

https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick...=1&AheadHour=0

It shows the probability of rain by hour, plus the amount. It makes it easy to plan rides -- while it's not perfect, I use it all the time to plan rides. Especially this time of year, it's almost never rainy all day...if you want to ride, just figure out whether the morning or afternoon are going to be your best bet, and off you go.

woodway

I enjoy reading the weather blog of Cliff Mass, a meterology reseacher at the University of Washington. He says that any weather forecast more than a couple of days out is a bunch of hooey and you really should not pay too much attention to it. You can read him here:

https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2010/0...le-biking.html

I also like the "Probability Forecast" tool that the UW has put together, and will often us it to decide where to go ride:

https://www.probcast.com/?mapDate=200...ve&units=hInch

zacster

Well I just checked Travelocity on the cost of booking another flight in June, and it will cost too much. I guess I'll take my chances with next week. As pointed out it won't rain the entire day (I hope).

This flight for next week was too cheap to pass up. $249rt from NY. Hotels weren't so cheap however.

Bogester 

Get a light rain jacket or vest, some quick drying pants (running/bike tights work great), and go. I can ride a few hours in light steady rain. It takes a pretty good downpour to keep me inside (usually only once or twice a year).

zacster

I'll have to pick up a rain jacket when I'm there. Since I never start a ride in the rain I don't own a cycling rain jacket, and what better place to buy rain gear than Seattle. I arrive Tuesday and maybe I'll head straight to one of the stores recommended in another thread I started. I need new road shoes as well.

BengeBoy 

Zacster -- you picked a good week to visit.

It's also Seattle Beer Week:

https://www.seattlebeerweek.com/

zacster

Now that is just perfect. As a part-time homebrewer and a full time beer drinker, I can see I'll get a lot of riding in.

jgadamski

A bike is a portable field sobriety test.

Moderation...... is for monks.

zacster

And in perfect beer logic, it extends from the 13th through the 23rd. A nice long extended week...

vaticdart

Actually not so much. I've seen people too drunk to walk but they still managed to ride fine. Not recommended, of course, but you can be surprisingly inebriated on stay up; you do have two huge gyroscopes under you trying to keep you upright.

Stopping and turning can be another matter entirely.

Plus you sober up fast if you're riding a decent pace.

zacster

I made it here. It was a pretty uneventful trip except for getting from downtown up to the hotel on Capitol Hill. The bike case is too big to fit in a cab, and I couldn't lift it onto a bus. Then I remembered the hotel has a shuttle. And here I am.

It has alternated between sun and rain about every half hour since I got off the plane. Gotta go, its the sun's turn.

BengeBoy 

Zacster, before you complain about today's weather, I just wanted to point out that even though one of my colleagues claimed to witness snow flurries out the office window today amid the sideways rainstorm, I did not personally see any. Also, according to the weather service, it did not start raining until 2:30 p.m., and wind gusts at Boeing Field only reached 24 mph, not the 45 mph that was forecast. Hope you got your miles in early.

Bogester 

The rain today was nothing. I was riding yesterday about 2:30, heading from downtown to Wallingford, when the deluge hit. Can't get much wetter than that...I was soaked! Didn't last long though and was actually kind of fun. Welcome to Seattle.

zacster

Well, let me tell ya. I was out on the Sammamish trail thinking about how I lucked out on the day when the wind kicked up. By the time I got to Marymoor it was bending the trees over. Then the rain started, light at first. I hit a deluge when I got on the 520 trail and that kept coming until I got into downtown Bellevue. I was starving, but decided since it had stopped raining I should press on. It was coming down again on my way to the I90 bridge and started coming down hard by the time I got there, so I went under the bridge and sat for a while, ate my Clif bar and put my leg warmers back on because it was getting colder too. I rode across Mercer Island and the bridges in a deluge, but at least I can say that once I was on the last bridge I relaxed because I figured I could walk the rest of the way if I had to. Even in the worst of it though I just kept riding. Once you're wet what's the point of stopping? While the temperature had dropped I wasn't feeling like I was getting too cold. At least I had bought a rain jacket yesterday and had it with me.

I'm taking a break from riding tomorrow as it is supposed to rain again, but I'll play it by ear, and keep it close in any case. I spent way too much time riding around this morning not going anywhere before I headed off.

As for the condition of the roads/trails: The BG is in terrible shape, the Sammamish is also. They both have too many bumps and dips. And a comment I'm sure will irk some Seattleites. NYC has much better bike lanes than Seattle does. In NY they aren't shared. They are bikes only. And the number has been increasing. I can ride from my house in Brooklyn into Manhattan up to my office near Grand Central and only about 2 miles aren't in exclusive bike lanes over a 10 mile trip, and that last 2 miles is scheduled for a separated bike lane this year. I will say though that the density of cyclists is much less in NY. There is some safety in numbers.

My all time worst rain though is when I started the Escape NY century a few years ago. By the time I had gone about a half a mile, the rain started coming down in buckets. The remnants of hurricane Hugo were coming through. Then the lightning started, with one bolt coming down near where the organizers had set up. That was enough to cancel the ride. At least I had the subway to duck into. I guess today I could have take a bus back.

MillCreek

And many of the actual roads in the Seattle area are not much better. Bump, pothole and patch city.

BengeBoy 

Fair comment.

The mayor of Seattle will be riding to work with other cyclists tomorrow; meet at 7:15 a.m. at the Fremont bridge, ride to work with him and join the "bike to work" rally at city hall -- you can be the honorary NYer at the event.

vaticdart

Yep, I think I would have stayed drier, or drier for longer, if I had mounted my fenders to my helmet.

I made it within about two miles of home before I got hit by a cloudburst. A little bit of damp actually got inside my Pac Designs bag, that's only the second time that's ever happened.

CliftonGK1

And I agree with MillCreek about the condition of many roadways, too. I guess that riding them on a daily basis I'm just used to it. I could draw a map from memory for where the root heaves and sinkhole dips are between Marymoor Park and Woodinville Gateway on the Sammamish Trail.

zacster

Thanks to all for the encouragement to just plow through the rain, and a special thanks to Steve/BengeBoy for taking me on a ride to Auburn/Black Diamond. Buffalo pepperoni was a big hit in the house, as was the Copper River salmon that I brought home with me.

I have the rain jacket I bought at REI hanging from a doorknob in my bedroom and I wonder if I'll ever use it again. Since I only had 5 days, I made the best of them, but I wonder if I'd ever head off on a rainy day from my house, except maybe to do an organized ride that I already paid for. We don't have so many rainy days that I would just ignore the rain and go.