To keep dry in the rain, take the car, bus or train ...not the bike!

If you want to stay dry during rainy weather, leave the bike in the garage and use the car, the train or the bus. It's that simple. I don't think I've ever gone out in the rain, wearing supposedly 'waterproof' clothing, and come back dry. I'm talking about the ineffectiveness of cycling-specific 'waterproof' clothing. Somehow, the rain gets in and I get soaked to the bone. I suppose the acid test is whether you can reach your destination dry and not have to change clothes when you get back. Easier said than done, I'd say.

If it's raining, leave the bike in the garage...

I recently bought a traditional cycling cape off Amazon. It looked the business to be fair, transforming yours truly into a kind of high-viz caped crusader, and I was convinced it would do the job, ie, keep me dry. I remember owning a cycling cape years and years and years ago and, I can't remember how, but it somehow clipped to the bike forming a kind of tent over my legs and, by and large, kept me dry. Not this one. Although, when I mounted the bike I felt pretty confident that I would get home dry. As I set off, however, the first problem was safety. I had two choices: Keep my hands under the cape, which would mean a lot of faffing around, first to avoid the cape obstructing the lights, and second, how to grab the material of the cape in such a way as to enable normal operation of the brakes. The second choice was whether to put my arms through two apertures so they were free to hold the handlebars in the normal manner. Eventually, after stopping and starting a fair bit, I opted for the latter.

For a while I was confident that I would remain dry, but this was purely because the rain was almost non-existent. The first thing I noticed was that the cape wasn't going to protect my legs, leading me to the conclusion that a cape alone was not the answer to keeping dry. I would need to be wearing waterproof trousers. Another thing was to factor in the wind. Wind and capes are not good bedfellows. Once the wind gets inside it, well, you're finished basically. The wind blew the cape back at me exposing my legs completely so that when it really did start to rain I was wet through within 10 minutes. Add no front mudguards and the fact that the front wheel was kicking up a lot of water from puddles and, well, I was out of the game before it started.

I rode along the B269 to Botley Hill and then turned right on to The Ridge, heading towards Woldingham. When I reached the Botley Hill Farmhouse pub the proper rain had started and I resigned myself to being wet through from the waist down, and getting wetter as I progressed towards and through Woldingham. On the downward ride along Slines Oak Road I had that sense of resignation that I normally have in the rain when not wearing waterproof clothing. I was wet, basically. I had been defeated. Nothing else mattered. Bring it on. I embraced my wetness in other words. The cape hadn't done it's job and I was, I have to admit, despairing, writing a much more depressing version of this article in my head as I rode along and almost blaming Boris Johnson for my predicament.

Why didn't I think of that? An umbrella!

Well, it wasn't all bad news: my upper body had remained dry and this was when I realised that to keep totally dry I'd need to be wearing those waterproof trousers; but even then, would I really keep dry? No, I wouldn't. I went out in waterproof trousers when it wasn't raining (as an insurance policy in case it did rain) and when I got back I was wet through, with sweat! I had to change my trousers. So, my simple message to readers is this: if it's raining and you're thinking of riding the bike, don't. Not if you want to keep dry. Why? Because wearing 'waterproof' clothing will not keep you dry, you'd be better off either taking the car, the bus or the train. One thing I did think about was wearing day-to-day rainwear, like a trench coat or a hooded parker, the stuff I normally wear when I go out for walk in the rain. Not that I consciously go out for a walk in the rain. Who does? I mean, let's face it, you only go out in the rain if you have to. Fine, you might be caught out in the rain, hence that well-worn mummy phrase, "take your coat, it might rain", but if it's raining BEFORE you got out, what do you do? Ask mum for a lift to the station, or whatever. You certainly wouldn't take a walk for the hell of it.

The cape would be good for walking in the rain, but on a bike, unless accompanied by waterproof trousers, you're on a loser and even with them you'd likely still get back and have to change. Personally, I'd love to know if there is such a thing as truly waterproof cycling wear, somehow I don't think there's any such thing.

Postscript, Saturday 19th December 2020...

I was praying for more rain today as I wanted to test the cape and waterproof trousers combo, but alas, initially just a mild spitting when I set off on the Slines Oak Sloth, a 16-mile ride that, like yesterday, takes me on the 269, along The Ridge and then past the golf course into Woldingham and home via the length of Slines Oak Road. It brings my total mileage this week to just over 50 miles.

There was rain but not as much as yesterday, but guess what? Yes, when I reached home I was soaked through and had to change all my clothes. My trousers (the ones underneath the waterproof trousers) were wet through, even the fleece I was wearing under the cape was wet through, my socks were soaked and my supposedly waterproof Peter Storm walking shoes are also soaked and will take a few days to dry off.

I was kind of hoping that wearing the cape/waterproof trousers combo would improve things, but no, the result and the message of this article remains the same: there is no such thing as waterproof cycling wear, you might escape with being less wet than you might have been had you not been wearing your protective clothing, but you will still be wet and that's in mild rain. Should you experience a major downpour then in my opinion you're better off stripping naked and riding home; that way all you'll need to do when you get home is dry yourself off.

Photos courtesy of Pixabay.

Who needs waterproofs – when there's Speedos!

When Andy and I first started cycling back in 2006, we used to get up really early and meet along the B269 in the dark. In retrospect, getting up that early – and by early I mean we met at 7am, which was dark in the winter months – wasn't a bad thing as it meant we got back early too. But these were the days when we cycled fairly seriously. We hadn't coined the phrase NoVisibleLycra, we didn't have a blog and, well, we just got up, cycled off to Westerham, stopped for a cream bun and a bottle of mineral water and then, with little conversation, we cycled back, said our goodbyes and then repeated the process.

Gradually, however, we got more chatty, we started talking about stuff like politics and cars and Top Gear, we cracked a few jokes, talked about bikes and then, after a while, realised that having a cream bun kind of cancelled out the point of cycling: exercise. Then I thought about bringing along a flask of tea, Andy started with the cereal bars and suddenly, who needed a convenience store? Not us! We could park up anyway and sip our tea and munch on those cereal bars.

My memory's a little hazy about those early days with the flask. Did we use the bench next door to the convenience store, did we just stand around? I can't remember. When we went to Botley Hill, long before wising up to the Tatsfield Bus Stop where, hey, we could shelter from the storm, we'd just stand around under trees, even in the winter, and invariably got soaked as we drank our tea. Of course we did wise up and soon Tatsfield Bus Stop really was a port in a storm. But there were plenty of things we hadn't wised up to.

Whenever we had a puncture, for example, rather than fix it on the roadside using some kind of repair kit, we simply resigned ourselves to walking home, listening en route to the increasingly irritating sound of the tyre squeaking. Sometimes we just walked a cool three of four miles from, say Westerham to Oxted. Other times the walk was much longer: all the way home from Botley, for example, seven miles, it took hours. And then one or the other of us wised up: how about we fix our punctures on the roadside? Why don't we bring some kind of kit with us and a pump and save a bit of time? And it did save time even if sometimes it was so cold it made Andy lose his temper!

And yes, we're not called NoVisibleLycra for nothing. We just don't wear the stuff, we don't want to look like fucking Power Rangers. We ride chunky Konas and, to be frank, we wear normal clothes, not 'cycling gear'. Well, not for much longer. Now don't get me wrong; we're not planning on riding racers and buying Lycra, oh no, but we are kind of sick of going home like a couple of over-sized sponges, full of rain water and speckled with mud. And as for arse, well, it gets a proper soaking because I don't have a rear mudguard. Okay, I'm still mulling over the idea of ruining my bike's original lines with an ugly black plastic mudguard, so the wet arse might stay – or will it? Not if I buy some decent cycling trousers that are water repellent! And perhaps a matching top! Andy feels the same way.

I mean, put it this way; when I reached home this morning after a ride out to the Tatsfield Bus Stop, I was properly drenched. My trousers were so shiny I could have seen my reflection in them. My arse was so wet, I, yeah, it was wet and I can't think of simile. Anyway, forget my arse, that's a mudguard issue. No, I'm talking proper cycling clothes. Seriously, I was wet and cold when I reached home, wet and cold and it wasn't pleasant. I had to peel my clothes off and my hands were so cold I ran them under a hot tap and felt nothing, that's how numb I was; and there was no need. I could have been nice and comfortable in some kind of water resistant clothes.

So, we made an important decision today: to buy water resistant cycling clothing, but NOT, I repeat NOT Lycra, not body hugging. Mind you, a pair of Speedos might be worth considering. I mean summer's coming...