Well, it went kinda like this....
I ended up working about an hour more than usual. It was sprinkling when I left, but there was some hope that I would get some rain along my route home. I really wanted test my gear.
I entered Cobb county about 5:45 and immediately heard the sirens. They test them during the late morning on the first Wednesday of every month. Hmm, today isn't Wednesday and it's not the first of the month. It was still sprinkling. While it was overcast there were no low clouds, no dark clouds, and I couldn't detect any cloud movement. It wasn't even windy. Weird.
Five minutes later I saw it down the road. A wall of sorts. Yep, I'm gonna get some rain after all. I could see it approaching. Brake lights, brake check. People were slamming on their brakes. Hmm, it didn't look like it was raining that hard. Visibility was still very good. Then I entered into it. Wow, it was raining pretty hard. I could feel it. The rain drops were pretty big....wait minute that's not rain I see bouncing off my jacket. HAIL!!! It was pretty small and no cause for alarm. About the size of a pellet used in air guns. I continued on...
Two minutes later I rounded a curve and it quickly got very dark, the wind picked up so fast that I immediately looked up. Low clouds, cloud movement...crap cloud movement in different directions....some rotation. Wow, the wind is really blowing now. I kept a sharp eye on sky around me. Sheets of rain coming down from every direction. The weather sirens were still screaming. There were broken tree limbs on the road. I immediately formed a shelter plan looking at the buildings around me. However, the cell I rode through was very narrow and I could see a brighter sky just down the road in the direction I was heading. I pushed on.
The wind died down and the hail turned to rain and then back to sprinkling. I pulled into the garage 15 minutes later.
So, how did the gear do? My jacket and pants were drenched.
Boots: My feet felt like they were sitting in an inch of water. This was expected as my boots are the summer version of the A* smx5 ( read as the vented version ). I turned my boots upside down upon removal but not a single drop came out.
Jacket and pants: When I took my jacket and pants off, my work clothes didn't have a single drop on them. My jacket has a wind / water proof neck gaiter that zips on so I was dry from the head down to my feet...well, almost.
Gloves: My hands got wet from the wrist down into the palms. I don't think my gloves leaked any. However, I had the gloves pulled over my jacket sleeves ( gauntlet ) and I think water seeped down that that junction. Maybe I should have pulled the jacket sleeves over the gloves. I'll try that next time. My hands did not get cold, though, has I dialed up the heat and the heated gloves over-powered the cold water. :yesnod:
So, the jacket to glove portion is the only area that needs attention.
BTW, the G-Strom was sure footed and purred like a kitten the whole time. :fineprint: