I thought I had gotten away from the rain by leaving Holland, but my skate-parade just keeps getting peed on. Out of the five in-line races I've competed in so far this season, three of them have been touched by cloudscapes letting loose their liquid loads.

My first race, the Sea Otter Classic, was held on the rain-soaked Indy-car motor speedway at Laguna Seca, near Monterey, CA. Home to brutal hills and hairpin turns, it's an extremely challenging and technical course to begin with (just ask the Muse brothers). Throw in an extra dimension of difficulty when wet, and you're in for an adventure.

Seven times we squiggled like salmon up the asphalt river, 350 feet up and over a wall as steep as a ladder. Seven times we surrendered ourselves to the swirling current and got borne down a raging corkscrew cataract at 50 miles an hour. Totally hairball.

Sometimes I found myself drifting on all 10 wheels around the fastest sections of the course. More than just the elements, though, I had to contend with the spirited efforts of my competitors. Dan Burger (TWINCAM) launched a kamikaze attack at the outset that stayed away until the final lap of the fifty-minute-plus-one-lap criterium race. He forced the pace without respite, forcing me to play catch-up from the get-go.

Dan gave me a good scare. I let his line run out pretty far and had to struggle hard to reel him in. On the final migration over the wall, I found an ancient gear no one else had, which caused Burger go belly-up. Sandy Snakenberg (Mike's Bikes) slunk into second, while Dan clung to third.

Despite the unsavory weather conditions, there were no casualties except some nationally sponsored racers who withdrew because they deemed the rain-slickened course too dangerous for competition. In so doing, a handful of big guns passed up an opportunity to appear on ESPN 2's coverage of the race.

In my second rain race, the "Race Through the Wine Country," Team Hyper and Team Mike's Bikes were dealt a crushing blow when the skies opened up two and a half miles from the finish, taking away precious traction as I poured it on over the last little hill.

So, after 27.5 miles of parrying and thrusting along the bucolic stretches of the Silverado Trail between Napa and Calistoga, CA, I tasted the fruits of my labors with a sweet victory over Steve Carr (Team Hyper) and third place Scott Schwartz (Team Mike's Bikes). Watch out for Schwartz. He's a former member of the Subaru/Montgomery cycling team who's rabid for a win.

The flat to gently rolling Silverado Trail made for a marvelously scenic and picturesque race course, something us athletes had precious little time to admire. When you have to remain vigilant the whole time during a race, it's hard to appreciate the scenery for more than a few seconds at a time.
I tried grinding down the opposition with a series of attacks beginning at mile 18. Every time I got caught I'd filter to the back of the pack and then attack again. I sensed people were tiring when it started taking a little longer each time for them to close on me. When an out-of-breath Stan Bunn (Mike's Bikes) sarcastically thanked me for what I was doing, I finally knew I was dishing out the right stuff to set up the final breakaway.

In my third race in the rain, I was beset with technical problems that compounded matters. Despite skating the last two miles without the front wheel of my left skate, I still managed to outsprint breakaway companion Stan Bunn (Mike's Bikes) to notch another victory at the arduous Big Sur International Marathon Skate.

The race course followed California's panoramic Highway 1 from Big Sur to Carmel, along the same rugged stretch of coastline that 10,000 runners ran. Along the way, we were serenaded by roadside bands, lashed by fierce headwinds, and periodically doused by rain. Then there was the case of the missing wheel.

Losing my wheel was a simple case of operator error. One of my bolts began rattling loose at the beginning of the race. The reason why first part of the race was so fast was because whenever everybody saw me stooping over trying to fix my skate, they'd force the pace. I tried to remedy the situation by placing a PowerBar sticker from my helmet over the bolt, but by mile 7, where hundreds of wildly cheering spectators lined three-deep along a bridge, my loose screw had fallen out.

For the rest of the race my left skate's performance was drastically reduced. It was more than just a light shimmy that slowed me down. The wobble caused my left leg to get so tired I thought it was going to fall off. I had to work extra hard when Jay Etheridge (Team Labeda) and I were off the front. Then, when Stan and I finally broke away for good, it was all I could do to keep up. It was actually a relief when the wheel finally fell off.

I'll never forget the look on Stan's face when he saw that wheel bouncing off the side of the road. He had this malicious grin on his face, as if he finally had me in his clutches. He took off with all his might, but I managed to tuck in and then scrape by him with 200 meters to go. At the finish, he was only about five feet back of me.

The moral of the story, if there is one at all, is to make the most out of skating in all conditions, because you'll probably have fun anyway. Don't use the rain as an excuse to slack off ("I'm not racing in the rain because I don't have anything to prove"). If you don't keep taking up the slack, it becomes too easy to do it again the next time, like quitting a race just because you get dropped from the front pack.

Many a racer has gone skulking off at the first sign of falling droplets, but my love of skating is far too true to let a little rain diminish my desire to race. Over the years, in fact, I have made the rain my friend. It may be the kind of relationship where I have to laugh to keep from crying, but heck, if it's going to rain, let it pour!


Sidebar --Conquering Fear of Water

Even if it seems I've adopted a devil-may-care attitude about racing in the rain, it's not as reckless a proposition as it seems. I have conquered my fear of water by adhering to three basic principles:

One, I abbreviate my push to reduce the chance of slipping. This means I push out only half as far as normal, making sure to keep all my wheels in contact with the ground surface. My power output per stroke goes down, but I make up for the resulting loss of speed with a higher cadence.

Two, I make sure that my weight is centered over my gliding skate, so that even if I do slip while pushing with the opposing leg, I can still catch myself in a balanced position. This happens frequently when I inadvertently skate over a painted line or a patch of oil.

Three, if negotiating a wet turn, I crouch down low and anchor myself with my elbows on my knees. I keep a wide stance with my weight centered over my skates. That way, when I go around turns, even if I do slip, my feet will never slide out from under me.