Nature shined on me a bit, and only drizzled listlessly on me as I rode home. There is however a simple principle of physics that I was dealing with all the way home. Skinny tires, no tread, lots of rain = no braking power, and lots of skidding. I rode slowly trying to be as safe as possible, but still found myself riding the skid for many feet on several occasions.

One memorable vignette, let me set the scene. I am in the right lane, mini-van wants to rush past me, then to my horror, pulls into the right hand lane almost directly in front of me and throws on the brakes for a right hand turn. I crank on the brakes, feel them engage, feel the back tire lock up and we are skidding. When you start to skid the bike often will start to shift, with the back wheel pulling to one side. This can be very fun, and also a bit scary. My solution, let go of the brakes, this made the wheel shoot back to the middle, then I would crank on them again, skid to the side, let go, rinse repeat.

The best part of all this was the really long and fun skids that I got to ride, the second best part was the horrified/sickly fascinated face of some huumans on the side watching me. It was like they both wanted me to crash, but also didn’t, and were both disappointed and thankful when I didn’t. After that little experience, and almost getting doored (gah), I decided not to press my luck, and walked it down a rather steep hill near my house. There would have been no way to stop in time if I had needed to, and with all the rain my swerving was gonna come up short.

I had pretty bad Swamp ass when I got home from the wheel fling, but a little toweling and me and the bike were dry. My bar tape is a bit wet from sitting out in the rain all day, but it should dry. I recently greased up the chain so it should be fine as well. Thursday is supposed to be warm and sunny again, so it looks like it is back to being able to brake for me, hurrah! Till then, ride it like you stole it.