Well, what do you know? Summer has yet to show itself, and this riding season is becoming awfully reminiscent of last year’s. The only thing you’re sure of when going out for a ride is that no matter what it was like when you left, you will end up in the unavoidable God-operated car wash!

I took possession of Honda’s latest test scooter, the SH150i a few days ago. Matthieu (Lambert, one of our two top-notch action photographers) and I met at Pascal’s (Bastien, another Moto123 tester and scribe) to complete the photo portfolio of the little Honda.

After the shoot, I went back to my real job (That’s right; trying out and writing about motorcycles is just a part-time gig, more of a low-paid but fun hobby actually). The day so far had been a succession of stormy and sunny breaks, and dark clouds loomed once again. What do I do? Return home (10 minutes) and take my car, or ride 40 kilometres straight to work? Am I a biker or not?

Naturally, as soon as I chose to ride, the rain started and quickly picked up in intensity, so I did my best to hide my legs and feet behind the cowl. I ducked a little bit forward and took on the rain and shite from the trucks with resignation. The farther I got, the more it rained. Turning back would have been admitting I had made a wrong decision or that I was some kind of wuss, and thus out of the question. My gloves still kept my fingers warm and dry, and my new coat was still watertight, enough to boost my morale and make me whistle “I’m singing in the rain” as I got wetter and wetter. I focused on the scooter to forget the discomfort.

Bring it on, Big Guy!

A few klicks further, reality suddenly struck and bit me in the a… While my coat was blocking the rain, the water was dripping all the way down to my pants. Sure enough, you could have sworn I had just jumped into a pool -- they were soaking wet!

I merged from an on-ramp at full throttle and the humble but game SH150i accelerated… slowly but surely, beyond 90 km/h until it reached its top speed of about 110 km/h -- on the flat, with the wind coming from the side. It was a real storm out there and torrents of rain hit me while I attempted to thread through the increasingly-slow traffic (once again because of the rain). The irony then was that I literally kept singing in the rain, drenched but my heart filled with happiness.

That is, until I finally arrived at my boring other job and spent the rest of the day shivering…