Late last summer I was working on a movie in a river gorge about an hour west of Toronto. We worked through the night and finished about 5:30 a.m. The location was about 35 k or so from our hotel - in Guelph.
It started raining just before 5, and by the time I got on the road it was coming down pretty hard. About a third of the way back to the hotel the rain became torrential. I didn't want to stop (even though I was managing only about 15 - 20 kph tops) because it didn't feel like it was going to stop raining. I followed the shoulder line, which I could only see for about 7 or 8 feet in front of me it was raining so hard. I met only a couple of oncoming cars on the ride, and even though they (obviously) had their headlights on, you could only see them when they got to about 50 yards away - it was raining so hard. For about 5 minutes there was lightning too. One bolt hit very close - close enough to feel the compression, and yet I could barely see it. I've been in heavy storms and downpours before, but never on a bike. It was unreal.
About 10 k from my room, I began negotiating a long, slow curve. It ended at a stop sign where it joined the main highway. Water was all across the road, and I knew I didn't have much grip. I slowed to 10 kph or so, to take the turn, but as I came to it, the bike just kept going straight as I steered. It was weird. I decelerated some more, but I was pretty much hydroplaning straight off the corner. Since there was a guard rail I was going to hit I figured, since I was going so slow, I'd put my left foot down and sort of slide to a stop. I had on 13 inch (steel toe) boots and I swear to God as I put my foot down the water came up between my rain pants and the boots and started pouring into my boots over the tops. I never did touch the ground with my foot. It was hard to take my eyes off where I was going, but I did manage to glance down long enough to see my right foot, which was sitting on the peg, was going through the water like a boat. The muffler was bubbling like the exhaust on an old outboard motor. I had the presence of mind to actually laugh at that - it was pretty funny.
About three seconds later I sort of "landed" and the bike moved to the left, and the water went down to about 3 or 4 inches in depth, and I was okay. From there on there were those sodium highway lights, and I made it back to my room. Right when I got there my bike did start to misfire, off and on, but at least I was home safe.
When I got to my room I got off the bike and gave it a big kiss on the tank. I couldn't believe it had made it, but it had. I was on the ground floor so I slid the doors open, put some papers down and wheeled my bike into my room. I took the hair dryer off the wall in the bathroom, removed the side covers, plug caps, and fuse box cover from the bike, and dried the thing out. By morning it was fine, except for where the headers joined the muffler - that join had cracked - probably from being hot and then submerged. I had to get a friend to weld the collar back onto the muffler.
What I learned was to always have contact lenses and anti-fog with me. Because of my work I have excellent rain gear (when I got back to my room and took off my rain gear, I was completely dry underneath). But my eyeglasses and the visor on my (full face) helmet kept fogging up so badly, it almost prevented me from coming out of the situation all right. So now I always carry some contacts (if I'm not already wearing them), a little bottle of baby shampoo(regardless of the time of year), and some clear, wrap around safety glasses. (I learned from swimming that baby shampoo is about the best thing I can find for anti - fog.)
The next day I found out I had missed a tornado which touched down about 4 miles from where I was riding. It rained pretty hard until the next afternoon, and there was all sorts of flooding all over southern Ontario.
I was pretty lucky and somehow I can always, it seems, easily remember that odd sensation of turning with no effect as well as the surprising feeling of having my foot dragged back in the water, as I went to put it down to steady myself. I'd only been riding for about 3 months at that point, so I guess I didn't know any better. I'd say it was a baptism by fire, except it was more authentic than that - it was a baptism by (lots of) water ....
