Friday, January 25, 2008

Rain, all day

The rain today was relentless. There was maybe a 12 second break before noon. By all accounts it should have been misery, riding around, soaked through, cold. I had a good time though, in a masochistic way. It was too wet to take any pictures, except for this one at the office before heading out, because the yellow dishwashing gloves cracked me up:

I forget my co-worker's name, but he's been at Speedway for a month or two. He Winfred told me that after all the rain yesterday he went out and bought these. He later told me at the end of the day that they didn't really work out. (Edit 2/10: poor guy got hit by a car last Friday and ended up in SF General. I heard it's nothing too serious. Dude, get well soon. )

And a security guard took this picture for me at One Market:

Because it was the biggest roll of the year. That sucker weighed like thirty l-b's. Luckily I didn't have to take it very far.

Last month my friend Lydia took a few photos of me in my work clothes. This is basically how I'm dressed on a cold or rainy day:


1. Northface Jacket, mostly waterproof
2. Underneath that, long underwear and a t-shirt + sleeves*
3. In this photo, I'm wearing my trusty Ben Davis cutoffs with serious holes in the ass, but I've since upgraded to a pair of these, for which I paid dearly, even with a 20% discount.
4. Under the pants, a good pair of bike shorts. I always wear bike shorts.
5. Leggings, like sleeves, but for my legs.
6. In this photo, I'm wearing socks but that's the past. Lately I've been going sockless in the rain to avoid the wet-sock problem, and it works. Sniffing my shoes though is probably more of a health risk than huffing.
7. Trusty Chrome Bag that actually does a good job keeping out water. I bought it on craigslist for $80 in 2005. Last year a co-worker pointed out that it was a lefty version. I'd never noticed that my strap was different from every other bag in San Francisco. My (highly talented) friend Rob painted the fresh design on back. All that's visible here is the squirrel with the nut, standing over a longboard.

So that's how I roll in the pouring rain. If my goal were to stay completely airtight dry, I'd probably do something different, like wear pants, say. So I get a little wet, and I'm cold, but I don't feel weighed down or constricted, and that's what I like. On days like today, everything's just going get wet anyway.

*I'm going to write a whole post about sleeves soon, because I love those bitches so much and wear them everyday.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You didn't notice that the strap was left-handed?! :o I'd feel really uncomfortable wearing one. I take it the guy who advertised it didn't mention that in the advert...

Those chrome shorts are expensive; $145 is equivalent to about £75. I like Endura hummvee shorts, way cheaper at £45, and they include a removable, padded lycra cycling short that clips on to the waist of the baggy outer shorts. Although when I was in desperate need for those shorts, my local mike shop could only offer medium (too small) or extra extra large - I took XXL.

As for your colleague wearing washing up gloves in the rain... Ha!

Ryan said...

It was the first messenger bag I bought, so I had no idea. No I'm used to that sucker.

Yeah, the chrome shorts were a pretty penny. I like them, they're comfortable, but at $120 I'm not sure if they're worth it. I bought them one day out of frustration, sick of my cutoffs that were too big, uncomfortable and ugly - not the ones in the picture - the followup pair.