Leanings
LEANINGS
Observations on raingear
Peter Egan
IT WAS NOT A DAY UPON WHICH EVEN THE great Sherlock Holmes would have been out and about. Rather than tramping around the Grimpen Mire or spying on the Stapletons of Merripit House, he would probably have looked out his window at the solid, steady rain and retired to the fireside at Baskerville Hall, sipping tea with Watson.
Which is probably what we should have been doing, but were not.
Instead, my riding pals from the Slimey Crud Motorcycle Gang and I were hopping around on one foot and then the other, donning rain suits, Totes, waterproof gloves, steaming up our visors and generally steeling ourselves for our traditional ride to the Superbike races at Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, some 150 twisting backroad miles away, as the crow never flies.
A lot of trouble, but there was not much grumbling. We were getting used to this raingear routine. Had to.
For those who have been fortunate enough this year to find themselves in one of the nation’s sun-drenched micro-climates, I should mention that the spring and summer of 1996 have so far been about the worst riding season in the Midwest since the invention of the twistgrip.
Months and days of cold, blowing, driving rain. Flooded roads, flooded fields. Darkness at noon, freezing fog. The kind of weather that has stopped whole armored divisions in their tracks and ruined grade-school class picnics from time immemorial.
Anyway, you’d think that with all this rain-and our advanced years-we might have figured out by now what to wear. And yet the four of us who were riding to Elkhart Lake together mutually agreed to delay our departure by well over an hour, just so we would have time to dig the appropriate gear out of our closets. Indecision time, again. What to take?
Essentially, when it rains I have three options, other than staying home: (a) a lightweight two-piece PVC-coated nylon Harley-Davidson rainsuit; (b) a bulkier but much warmer two-piece Gore-Tex Aerostich suit; or (c) a waxed-cotton Belstaff jacket and pants, now made in Australia by a company called “Driza-Bone,” replacing the old English-made one I finally wore out in only 25 years.
They all have their advantages, and which one I take depends mostly on temperature.
The Harley rainsuit goes along in hot weather because I can wear it over my regular leather jacket and store the whole suit in a small envelope in my tank bag when I don’t want it.
Aerostich gets the nod when it’s cold out, because if it’s too cold for this suit you shouldn’t be riding anyway, but should be indoors brooding. The disadvantage here is that the pants are bulky to store if the weather turns warm. Also, the breathable Gore-Tex will gradually wick in some moisture in a really driving all-day rainstorm.
It has been my life-long observation that only shiny materials resembling a child’s cheap wading pool seem to keep out all water-assuming the seams are sealed. If they aren’t, the leaked water will automatically run straight to your crotch and stay there all day. Rainwater, like spilled coffee, is drawn magnetically to the human crotch, as any scientist will tell you.
Basically, if you wouldn’t make a life raft out of it, it ain’t waterproof. On the other hand, shiny, non-breathable fabrics suffer from Turkish Bath Effect-you drown in your own sweatso you get a little damp either way. Nothing is perfect.
My third choice, the Belstaff suit, is for intermediate temperatures. A Belstaff will also wick a little water in eventually, but the pants are slightly more compact to store than the Aerostich’s, and the jacket is somewhat lighter for formal evening pubwear, making those elbow bends easier with a pint in hand.
A hard call, but I decided to go with the Belstaff because the weekend weather forecast called for (and would duly receive) drizzle, rain and cool overcast, just like England, and I could wear the jacket all weekend and laugh at the weather without having to run for my rainsuit in the Ducati’s tankbag.
Boots? I packed rubber Totes overboots. These used to be the cheeziest rain boots on Earth, tearing at the slightest tug, but my local dealer assured me they are of a new, stronger material (in response to numerous death threats), so I bought another pair, mostly because they are compact and fit in a tankbag.
The finishing touch was my prized pair of kidney-red rubberized canvas gloves, with cotton liners, bought in a hardware store in New Zealand, where veterinarians apparently use them to check for prostate problems in livestock. These gloves are so ugly they tend to make people nervous-especially men over 40-but they really work, unlike those tight-fitting “overmitts,” which make your hands feel like lobster claws and offer so little control sensitivity that you risk missing the turn-off to your hotel, or Sturgis.
Thus equipped, I rode all weekend in varying degrees of pouring rain, fog and mist in complete comfort. The Totes didn’t rip and the rain never soaked through my waxed-cotton jacket. Maybe Belstaff is using a new, improved grade of wax.
Also, a young rider named Alessandro Gramigni won the Superbike race, stunningly, on a Ducati in the pouring rain.
And I must confess that I genuinely enjoyed our group ride despite the weather. If you have adequate rain gear, there is something pleasant about riding through the elements untroubled, that feeling of both observing and being immersed in nature at the same time, like a scuba diver, or Dante touring Purgatory.
Once you accept the fact that a rainsoaked road is a sort of parallel universe with its own rules of traction and physics, the rhythm of rain riding can be quite pleasant.
Has to be. So far this summer we ride in the rain or almost not at all. □
