Riding Between Raindrops

(This article was originally published in my sports page column Self-Propelled

in the July 3 to 9, 2011 issue of the Baguio Chronicle

--- a weekly newspaper based in Baguio City, Philippines.)

Riding under the rain or in an inclement weather is a discipline by itself.

For the cyclist, visibility is a necessity of life, like food and water. Bright clothing and equipment is the cyclist’s first line of defense. Chose the brightest ones you can stand. Think in terms of drivers who are road-weary, timid and inattentive, often with wet or dirty windshields. Wear anything that attracts attention such as reflector vests. Even if you have the best lighting systems, many motorists won’t see you. If you have to ride in an inclement weather or if you are caught in it, be aware that you are virtually invisible.

Wet weather impairs traction, braking and visibility, both for the cyclist and for the other vehicles sharing the road. The risk of an accident is dramatically increased in wet conditions. Under wet conditions, the stopping power of your brakes (as well as the brakes of the other vehicles on the road) is dramatically reduced and your tires don’t grip nearly as well. This makes it harder to control speed and easier to lose control. To make sure that you can slow down or stop safely in wet conditions, ride more slowly and apply your brakes more gradually than you would under normal, dry conditions. Remember that you have to squeeze much harder to slow down or stop when your rims are wet.

The ideal clothing for cycling on a rainy weather is yet to be perfected though they have dramatically improved through the years. The trouble with rainwear for active sports is that any clothing that covers your body and is waterproof traps your perspiration. If the air and rain outside are cool, chilling the clothing, then the moisture evaporating from your skin even though you are not sweating condenses on the inside surface of the raingear like a dew, soaking you from the inside.

Since it is impossible to make a suit that sheds the rain from outside and completely eliminates condensation and perspiration problems, any cycling raingear is bound to be a compromise.

Riding into the rain creates additional problem because rain will pour through any ventilation openings in the front of your protective gear. Even if your bike is equipped with fenders and mud guards to minimize splash from your own wheels, you are likely to catch a lot of spray from cars, generally mixed with mud.

Many cyclists simply ignore the problem, choosing to get wet if it starts to rain. If you are not wearing a protective gear and if the weather is cold, you can lose a lot of body heat, draining your energy reserves and badly chilling the body. If you are cycling in prolonged rain, you may be a lot more comfortable if you can keep the amount of mud and precipitation hitting you to a minimum.

One type of rain garment is the cyclist’s cape which covers the upper body and hooks over the thumbs or handlebars to form a “rolling tent”. One problem though is that it obscures your vision of the road directly beneath you, distorting your perceptions and reactions. In order for the cape to be of any use at all, fenders may be used to cut the spray from below and rain pants may be necessary. But the cape increases wind resistance, flaps badly when riding fast, and acts like a sail to carry you in the direction of the wind whenever there is a gust or a passing truck thereby posing a severe hazard.

A rain suit is another alternative. While it covers most of your body and creates less wind resistance, it increases condensation problems and the trapping of sweat.

The traditional hood used on parkas for mountaineering and backpacking should not be worn while cycling because it is difficult to take a quick glace over your shoulder while wearing one. The hood continues to face straight ahead while your head turns inside and all you can see are the inside seams of the parkas instead of the car bearing down on you from the rear.

First used in 1969 as an alternative to fabric coatings, a film called Gore-Tex® is sandwiched in between a lightweight nylon fabric and an inner material, usually a light, non-woven mesh. The film, made of a material similar to Teflon®, has billions of pores so small that liquid water droplets cannot pass through in most circumstances, but molecules of water vapor can. The material is thus waterproofed but allows water vapor evaporated from the skin to pass through so that condensation and perspiration build-up are far less that with conventional coated nylon.

Gore-Tex® is a great improvement over the other materials. But it is expensive and requires greater care since dirt can act as a wetting agent, reducing the surface tension of water droplets and allowing them to leak through the pores. Fairly frequent washing is therefore necessary. And whether a raingear made of Gore-Tex® is worth the considerable additional cost depends on your budget.* (SP6)