Garage Leathers Swingarm bag and into the ditch!
 

I saved up and got my new swing are bag from Garage Leathers in and sealed it and installed it. I was so excited to try it out I didn't bother to check the weather out near my work, which is a good 50mi away.

Let's start off with the bag. It's awesome! It looks great, holds enough for me and it resisted allowing water inside remarkably well!

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On my ride out it was a beautiful day and only a few clouds in the sky. Things didn't start to get bad until 30 or so miles from home. Long story story short I was caught in a swell or cell, not sure of the exact term used. But it went from clear and blue to dark and gray/black in less than a minute. The rain started as a sprinkle and became a full blown storm complete with dime-size hail, again in less than a minute.

It got so bad I couldn't even see my speedo on my tank. I slowed down considerably and thought I was going to be fine, then the wind started. The hail started blowing in sideways. I started having to fight the wind to keep from getting blown over and the water on the road made this more tricky than it should have been.

So here I am riding down the road fighting the wind and struggling to keep it strait, then the gust came. I felt the front tire begin to slide and I knew I was screwed. Now up to this point I was fighting to get get the bike to the shoulder, but when the gust hit me I no longer needed to fight, it just went. Only, to the wrong shoulder. The wind was coming in from my right, and it pushed my clear across the oncoming lane and into the ditch. I managed to keep the bike up the entire time and got nothing but wet and muddy. All in all I feel it was a success. I walked away from it completely unharmed.

I've ridden in many storms over the past 10 years on a motorcycle but this was by far the worst most powerful storm I have ever had the displeasure to find myself in. I made it back home to find the contents of my swing arm bag completely dry however. It was a the silver lining form me that day.

HOLY SHIAT dude! That's unbelievable. My pants would DEFINATELY have been full after that. Cheers for keeping the shiny side up!

Congrats on buying an awesome handmade bag...not the cookie cutter mass produced version.

GLad you made it out of that situation okay!

good job. we dont' have that kind of weather here, where it can go from nice to crap in minutes. check weather before your next outting.

also that bag is good, great how it can keep things dry after all that.

I had almost the same experience up here in Michigan last wed. First time getting into a hail storm. Then the wind and down pour came along it was a miserable 38 miles home from work. I found a car in front of me to follow taillights it was the only thing I could remotely see. But I sure was not about to stop and get smacked by the crazy lightning everywhere. Storm blew in from no where. 10% chance of precipitation called for for the day when I went into work,

Even up here, it's amazing just how fast weather can change this time of year. Radar can show nothing one minute, and within a half hour a thunderstorm can explode, seemingly out of nowhere.

Dude's got SKILLZ!!!! Good job on not going into a panic or over correcting. That could have been disasterous.

You kept your head and have a great story to tell at the local watering hole. Good on ya.

Weather changes fast here. We have a sayin in Florida, "don't like the weather? Wait 5 minutes, it'll change!" It's a way of life.

I spent a lot of time riding the East Coast including Florida quite a bit from Jacksonville down to Miami, before I moved to Texas. You're not kidding about the weather there. It's crazy.

Here the weather is usually predictable, but this cell certainly wasn't. Didn't know what was happening until it was happening. I did keep my head about me and made a conscious decision to keep it rubber side down no mater what. This all took place on Friday. The weather since has been great and I'm pleased to report I was able to ride to work today.

My bones has 7200 miles on the clock as of today. Not bad considering I bought her in March.

Glad you made it without going down. Had a similar expirirnce last summer, got into a thunder storm with downburst winds and hail. Broke my sunglasses and bruised that shit out of my face. It went from rain to hail so fast that by the time I got stopped it looked like I just lost a MMA fight.