We survived

On Tuesday, January 31, 2017 at 2:33:34 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2017 3:53 PM, jbeattie wrote:

Hey, get some fenders and 28-35mm tires. Riding in the rain is SOP up here. I rode in to work in the rain and will ride home in the rain, although the clouds seem to be parting momentarily.

Care to talk about details of rain equipment, Jay?

I've never liked riding in the rain. I'm OK with a light mist or very
gentle shower, but cold rain, rain with significant wind, & really heavy
rain are the pits. And rain is one time I really wish all the cars
would go away, because of the road spray.

I do use fenders. I attach a nice wide fender flap to my front fender
to keep the spray pretty much off my shoes. Since I still use toe clips
(my retro-grouch badge of honor) I've sometimes attached toe clip covers
for extra protection for my feet.

I've tried waterproof jackets, and Gore Tex and other purportedly
waterproof-breathable jackets. I usually choose a rain cape, with an
inside elastic "belt" tied around my waist and loops over the brake
levers. The jackets never breathe enough. Even the cape is an
irritation because it sticks to my bare arms. Wool or synthetic arm
warmers make that a little less uncomfortable, but that's not good for
even slightly warm temperatures.

And we've mentioned the problem of rain on glasses. I've never found a
cap with a big enough brim to really prevent that. I generally take
the glasses off in the rain, but then I lose my rear view mirror.

All in all, unless it's a very warm, calm day, an empty road and a very
gentle rain, I tend to be miserable. So I usually avoid the rain.

How do you handle it?



--
- Frank Krygowski

Today it was cold and wet: Giro head/earband, sale-table Bontrager waterproof cold weather gloves, Amfib tights (you could use rain pants. I don't like rain pants), Gore Alp-X jack (old commuter jacket), fleecy poly-pro jersey because its cold and Gore booties over SPD shoes (Giro Code -- a fantastic sale table purchase). I'm on 28mm tires, which are too thin in the post-snow gravel drifts that have been pushed into the bike lanes. A nice 32-35mm tire would be better, but I wore mine out and need to get another pair. Ideas? I use a Banjo water proof pack -- much cheaper than Chrome or Ortleib. No rack on my commuter.

Rain riding in warm weather and on fast rides with others, I wear a wool jersey, short sleeve poly-pro tee, my Shower's Pass Elite jacket with pit-zips and lighter gloves. Pick gloves that won't get slippery. I sometimes switch to a less flappy bootie. I have about four pairs, maybe five. I go through them like Kleenex. In light, warmer rain, I wear a Castelli Gabba jersey and short-finger gloves. I'm always in the Amfib tights for rain riding, but if its really warm, I'll ride in shorts or regular tights, shoe covers, Gabba. Then you can mix it up and throw in vests. It's like a dressing a Ken doll.

My most favorite rain clothes are my Shower's Pass Elite jacket which is really light, breathable, can be stuffed into a jersey pocket and it keeps me dry. I did a two hour rain ride a couple of weekends ago, and I was surprisingly dry when I got home -- a little soak through, but not terrible. That jacket is no longer made, and I got it on incredible close-out at Western Bikeworks. I don't commute in it because I don't want to wear it out. Note that every jacket soaks through. It's just a matter of time, unless you're wearing a old plastic jacket, and then you just sweat yourself wet.

My Gore booties are really old school -- kind of baggy with a simple Velcro rear closure -- but they keep my feet dryer than any other set of booties I've owned, and I've owned about a zillion sets of booties, including several pairs I built. The Gore booties get ratty on the soles, and I just zig-zag the hell out of them and throw in patches (old rip-stop pieces).

Nirvana would be a Gore booty with lots of reflective striping -- or all Illuminite/Scotchlite or whatever it is called today. Something that really pops when it gets hit by headlights. Endura makes a booty that fits the bill, and I might get a pair -- although I tend to beat up Endura booties pretty quickly.

For night riding, I have a Luxos B dyno, a pulsing L&M Urban 800 front light (pulse instead of blinding flash) that I jack-up to maximum output when I hit the trail section of my commute or when it is really storming, and an L&M Vis 180 tail light. Wet pavement eats light.

You are screwed if you wear glasses. There are times when I just can't see.. I look over my glasses, and my eyes get pelted. And yes, that's when you try to find a low-consequence road, and you just go slower. You go slower anyway because there is usually a howling wind involved.

Fenders are critical around here, mostly as a social convention. You will be kicked out of polite cycling society if you're rooster-tailing the guys and gals behind you.

I switch to CX tires for shallow, fresh snow. Studs for older snow and a car for deep snow. Unless you have a fat bike, more than a few inches of unpacked snow is impossible (for me). Back to CX tires for slush -- or a car. I'm tired of crashing.

I do weekend rides with guys who have decades of experience racing, including racing in the rain -- which is what you do for the first half of the season around here. We do descents on twisting roads in the rain. And you know what, we go really slowly. Maybe faster than someone with no experience, but we just don't push it that hard. And nobody cares, but then again, nobody has factory-original bones either. I've separated my shoulder in a wet crash and broke my hand in October crashing over my son when he went down on wet pavement. It's not worth it to try to go fast. My son wasn't going that fast, but he had surprisingly ****ty tires in terms of wet grip. For a fast rain tire, I like my 25mm Pro 4s. They run large, and a true 28mm might be tight with the fenders on my Roubaix. A lot of my friends ride gravel bikes with 28mm tires and fenders for fast rain rides.

-- Jay Beattie.

On Wed, 1 Feb 2017 11:23:24 +1100, James
wrote:

On 01/02/17 06:57, Andre Jute wrote:


The weather has been so miserable here, I'd be delighted to go for
even a dull, boring, uneventful ride, no accidents, incidents or
schadenfreude moments required.




The weather where I am has been fine, but miserably hot and humid for
riding. The coolest part of the day is the hours before sun rise, which
is when I should be on my bike, but it is also the most pleasant time of
day to be sleeping.

We've had days if not weeks where the top temperature is in the high
30's and humidity 60-70%. Great for growing pineapples, dragon fruit
and bamboo, etc., but not much good for anything requiring physical
activity.

If one leaves the house just at daybreak you can usually get in a
couple of hours of reasonably good riding time. Or at least you can
here and I'd guess our weather, here in Thailand, is similar to yours
although I admit that the only time I visited Australia was Perth in
July... almost froze to death :-)

--
Cheers,

John B.

It ?

On Tuesday, January 31, 2017 at 9:20:10 PM UTC-5, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Tuesday, January 31, 2017 at 5:33:34 PM UTC-5, Frank Krygowski wrote:
Snipped
And we've mentioned the problem of rain on glasses. I've never found a
cap with a big enough brim to really prevent that. I generally take
the glasses off in the rain, but then I lose my rear view mirror.
Snipped

If you wore a helmet you could use a helmet mounted mirror.

A friend made me a mirror with a short stem ending with an alligator clip. He
thought I might like to clip it to the bill of my cycling (or other) cap. But
it's gone unused. I don't always wear a cap.

And of course, I don't see the point of wearing a bulky, fragile and weird-
looking styrofoam hat of dubious efficacy for an activity with such tiny risk
of TBI.

- Frank Krygowski

https://goo.gl/U2LP8c

The only use of 'it' we know of is

'It was a dark and stormy night'

that's'it' ... the caption from a significant 20C drawing.

using groups for tuning writing is worthy
Brandt posted a guide to better group style. 'THE' annoyed Brandt.

Experiments in reducing THE use age are underway.

I was grinding on Seda Speak, a reductive English form with eastern European fabric. Pleasantly terse but unintelligible n annoying to Long Island n Californian ears who objected extensively.

Should be more 'it' in Goo Scholar.

On Wednesday, February 1, 2017 at 12:44:00 AM UTC-5, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Tuesday, January 31, 2017 at 9:20:10 PM UTC-5, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Tuesday, January 31, 2017 at 5:33:34 PM UTC-5, Frank Krygowski wrote:
Snipped
And we've mentioned the problem of rain on glasses. I've never found a
cap with a big enough brim to really prevent that. I generally take
the glasses off in the rain, but then I lose my rear view mirror.
Snipped

If you wore a helmet you could use a helmet mounted mirror.
Snipped

And of course, I don't see the point of wearing a bulky, fragile and weird-
looking styrofoam hat of dubious efficacy for an activity with such tiny risk
of TBI.

- Frank Krygowski

I see that you didn't get it. The helmet (a red flag to as bull whem mentioned at all in RBT) was mentioned as many people wear them primarily for a place to put their mirror. Nothing was mentioned about proterction or TBIs.

Cheers

On Tuesday, January 31, 2017 at 2:22:35 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2017 3:34 PM, wrote:
On Tuesday, January 31, 2017 at 12:30:50 PM UTC-8, AMuzi wrote:
On 1/31/2017 2:17 PM, wrote:
On Tuesday, January 31, 2017 at 11:57:14 AM UTC-8, Andre Jute wrote:
On Sunday, January 29, 2017 at 11:36:57 PM UTC, James wrote:
On 25/01/17 11:52, Duane wrote:
James wrote:
I went for a ride this morning. About 70km, and relatively slow with a
guy who is recovering from damaged knees. We rode on a highway for
about 20km, and then along a minor road that has numerous wooden
bridges. We turned around when my companion had reached the 30km point
for him. Two of the bridges have timber boards running the length of
the deck, with gaps easily wide enough to have a road bike tyre drop in.
As we crossed them both in each direction, that's 4 crossings of pick
a plank bridges. I also dodged a couple of wallabies that were grazing
on the side of the road and became startled when I approached. We were
passed by numerous cars and trucks.

Neither of us died. Neither of us had flying rocks battering our shins
bloody, nor sharp rocks ripping the thin sidewalls of our light road
tyres. I rode over some broken glass, but didn't get a puncture.
Neither of us bonked, so glucose tablets were not needed. Neither of us
broke a chain, so we didn't need my chain tool. We didn't need my spoke
key, or any other part of my multi tool for that matter.

Our ride was quite uneventful. I must be doing something wrong.


Yeah but do you do that routinely?


Go for a ride and not have something nasty happen? Yes.

The weather has been so miserable here, I'd be delighted to go for even a dull, boring, uneventful ride, no accidents, incidents or schadenfreude moments required.

Andre Jute
Exercise and fresh air is its own imperative

We have another week of rain starting tomorrow evening. Predictions are yet another 3" of rain in the bay area and much more inland. And the Santa Cruz mountains are about to be washed away for the 109th time this year. While we were getting 1.5" they were getting 16".


Manifestation of your drought caused by global warming.

No doubt.

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/n...e_weather.html

--
- Frank Krygowski

Most people would be able to read that and take in that there is no difference between weather and climate EXCEPT time. So if it's cold every day for several years it's a colder climate.

Other people that are a little brighter might look at the NASA papers and see that they are proclaiming AGW by predicting the weather in a hundred years.

On 2/1/2017 9:19 AM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Wednesday, February 1, 2017 at 12:44:00 AM UTC-5, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Tuesday, January 31, 2017 at 9:20:10 PM UTC-5, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Tuesday, January 31, 2017 at 5:33:34 PM UTC-5, Frank Krygowski wrote:
Snipped
And we've mentioned the problem of rain on glasses. I've never found a
cap with a big enough brim to really prevent that. I generally take
the glasses off in the rain, but then I lose my rear view mirror.
Snipped

If you wore a helmet you could use a helmet mounted mirror.
Snipped

And of course, I don't see the point of wearing a bulky, fragile and weird-
looking styrofoam hat of dubious efficacy for an activity with such tiny risk
of TBI.

- Frank Krygowski

I see that you didn't get it. The helmet (a red flag to as bull whem mentioned at all in RBT) was mentioned as many people wear them primarily for a place to put their mirror. Nothing was mentioned about proterction or TBIs.

I got it, Sir. Do you suppose anyone here needed to be told that a
mirror can be mounted on a helmet?

--
- Frank Krygowski

On 1/31/2017 9:21 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Tuesday, January 31, 2017 at 2:33:34 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2017 3:53 PM, jbeattie wrote:

Hey, get some fenders and 28-35mm tires. Riding in the rain is SOP up here. I rode in to work in the rain and will ride home in the rain, although the clouds seem to be parting momentarily.

Care to talk about details of rain equipment, Jay?

I've never liked riding in the rain. I'm OK with a light mist or very
gentle shower, but cold rain, rain with significant wind, & really heavy
rain are the pits. And rain is one time I really wish all the cars
would go away, because of the road spray.

I do use fenders. I attach a nice wide fender flap to my front fender
to keep the spray pretty much off my shoes. Since I still use toe clips
(my retro-grouch badge of honor) I've sometimes attached toe clip covers
for extra protection for my feet.

I've tried waterproof jackets, and Gore Tex and other purportedly
waterproof-breathable jackets. I usually choose a rain cape, with an
inside elastic "belt" tied around my waist and loops over the brake
levers. The jackets never breathe enough. Even the cape is an
irritation because it sticks to my bare arms. Wool or synthetic arm
warmers make that a little less uncomfortable, but that's not good for
even slightly warm temperatures.

And we've mentioned the problem of rain on glasses. I've never found a
cap with a big enough brim to really prevent that. I generally take
the glasses off in the rain, but then I lose my rear view mirror.

All in all, unless it's a very warm, calm day, an empty road and a very
gentle rain, I tend to be miserable. So I usually avoid the rain.

How do you handle it?



--
- Frank Krygowski

Today it was cold and wet: Giro head/earband, sale-table Bontrager waterproof cold weather gloves, Amfib tights (you could use rain pants. I don't like rain pants), Gore Alp-X jack (old commuter jacket), fleecy poly-pro jersey because its cold and Gore booties over SPD shoes (Giro Code -- a fantastic sale table purchase). I'm on 28mm tires, which are too thin in the post-snow gravel drifts that have been pushed into the bike lanes. A nice 32-35mm tire would be better, but I wore mine out and need to get another pair. Ideas? I use a Banjo water proof pack -- much cheaper than Chrome or Ortleib. No rack on my commuter.

Rain riding in warm weather and on fast rides with others, I wear a wool jersey, short sleeve poly-pro tee, my Shower's Pass Elite jacket with pit-zips and lighter gloves. Pick gloves that won't get slippery. I sometimes switch to a less flappy bootie. I have about four pairs, maybe five. I go through them like Kleenex. In light, warmer rain, I wear a Castelli Gabba jersey and short-finger gloves. I'm always in the Amfib tights for rain riding, but if its really warm, I'll ride in shorts or regular tights, shoe covers, Gabba. Then you can mix it up and throw in vests. It's like a dressing a Ken doll.

My most favorite rain clothes are my Shower's Pass Elite jacket which is really light, breathable, can be stuffed into a jersey pocket and it keeps me dry. I did a two hour rain ride a couple of weekends ago, and I was surprisingly dry when I got home -- a little soak through, but not terrible. That jacket is no longer made, and I got it on incredible close-out at Western Bikeworks. I don't commute in it because I don't want to wear it out. Note that every jacket soaks through. It's just a matter of time, unless you're wearing a old plastic jacket, and then you just sweat yourself wet.

My Gore booties are really old school -- kind of baggy with a simple Velcro rear closure -- but they keep my feet dryer than any other set of booties I've owned, and I've owned about a zillion sets of booties, including several pairs I built. The Gore booties get ratty on the soles, and I just zig-zag the hell out of them and throw in patches (old rip-stop pieces).

Nirvana would be a Gore booty with lots of reflective striping -- or all Illuminite/Scotchlite or whatever it is called today. Something that really pops when it gets hit by headlights. Endura makes a booty that fits the bill, and I might get a pair -- although I tend to beat up Endura booties pretty quickly.

For night riding, I have a Luxos B dyno, a pulsing L&M Urban 800 front light (pulse instead of blinding flash) that I jack-up to maximum output when I hit the trail section of my commute or when it is really storming, and an L&M Vis 180 tail light. Wet pavement eats light.

You are screwed if you wear glasses. There are times when I just can't see. I look over my glasses, and my eyes get pelted. And yes, that's when you try to find a low-consequence road, and you just go slower. You go slower anyway because there is usually a howling wind involved.

Fenders are critical around here, mostly as a social convention. You will be kicked out of polite cycling society if you're rooster-tailing the guys and gals behind you.

I switch to CX tires for shallow, fresh snow. Studs for older snow and a car for deep snow. Unless you have a fat bike, more than a few inches of unpacked snow is impossible (for me). Back to CX tires for slush -- or a car. I'm tired of crashing.

I do weekend rides with guys who have decades of experience racing, including racing in the rain -- which is what you do for the first half of the season around here. We do descents on twisting roads in the rain. And you know what, we go really slowly. Maybe faster than someone with no experience, but we just don't push it that hard. And nobody cares, but then again, nobody has factory-original bones either. I've separated my shoulder in a wet crash and broke my hand in October crashing over my son when he went down on wet pavement. It's not worth it to try to go fast. My son wasn't going that fast, but he had surprisingly ****ty tires in terms of wet grip. For a fast rain tire, I like my 25mm Pro 4s. They run large, and a true 28mm might be tight with the fenders on my Roubaix. A lot of my friends ride gravel bikes with 28mm tires and fenders for fast rain rides.

Thanks for an unusually informative post.

My fantasy would be for something that passes for near-normal clothing,
yet keeps me comfortable in the rain. I suppose we don't have the
technology yet, and perhaps never will.

The Shower's Pass Elite sounds nice, and I think you've mentioned it
before. My old Gore-Tex jacket seems to be made of 3 or 4 layers and is
pretty bulky. I've got a nicely packable Nike ACG Clima Fit jacket that
was touted as water and wind "resistant." I suppose that in the same
way it "resists" nuclear warheads. Just not very well.

For utility rides around town, I don't want to suit up in tights,
booties and day-glow. These days, my tactic is to keep checking weather
radar online until I see a hole in the rain pattern, wear a mostly
non-breathable rain jacket (pit zips only), ride slow and have a rain
cape in case it really starts dumping on me. Or just take the car,
unfortunately.


--
- Frank Krygowski

On Wednesday, February 1, 2017 at 9:00:45 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2017 9:21 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Tuesday, January 31, 2017 at 2:33:34 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/31/2017 3:53 PM, jbeattie wrote:

Hey, get some fenders and 28-35mm tires. Riding in the rain is SOP up here. I rode in to work in the rain and will ride home in the rain, although the clouds seem to be parting momentarily.

Care to talk about details of rain equipment, Jay?

I've never liked riding in the rain. I'm OK with a light mist or very
gentle shower, but cold rain, rain with significant wind, & really heavy
rain are the pits. And rain is one time I really wish all the cars
would go away, because of the road spray.

I do use fenders. I attach a nice wide fender flap to my front fender
to keep the spray pretty much off my shoes. Since I still use toe clips
(my retro-grouch badge of honor) I've sometimes attached toe clip covers
for extra protection for my feet.

I've tried waterproof jackets, and Gore Tex and other purportedly
waterproof-breathable jackets. I usually choose a rain cape, with an
inside elastic "belt" tied around my waist and loops over the brake
levers. The jackets never breathe enough. Even the cape is an
irritation because it sticks to my bare arms. Wool or synthetic arm
warmers make that a little less uncomfortable, but that's not good for
even slightly warm temperatures.

And we've mentioned the problem of rain on glasses. I've never found a
cap with a big enough brim to really prevent that. I generally take
the glasses off in the rain, but then I lose my rear view mirror.

All in all, unless it's a very warm, calm day, an empty road and a very
gentle rain, I tend to be miserable. So I usually avoid the rain.

How do you handle it?



--
- Frank Krygowski

Today it was cold and wet: Giro head/earband, sale-table Bontrager waterproof cold weather gloves, Amfib tights (you could use rain pants. I don't like rain pants), Gore Alp-X jack (old commuter jacket), fleecy poly-pro jersey because its cold and Gore booties over SPD shoes (Giro Code -- a fantastic sale table purchase). I'm on 28mm tires, which are too thin in the post-snow gravel drifts that have been pushed into the bike lanes. A nice 32-35mm tire would be better, but I wore mine out and need to get another pair. Ideas? I use a Banjo water proof pack -- much cheaper than Chrome or Ortleib. No rack on my commuter.

Rain riding in warm weather and on fast rides with others, I wear a wool jersey, short sleeve poly-pro tee, my Shower's Pass Elite jacket with pit-zips and lighter gloves. Pick gloves that won't get slippery. I sometimes switch to a less flappy bootie. I have about four pairs, maybe five. I go through them like Kleenex. In light, warmer rain, I wear a Castelli Gabba jersey and short-finger gloves. I'm always in the Amfib tights for rain riding, but if its really warm, I'll ride in shorts or regular tights, shoe covers, Gabba. Then you can mix it up and throw in vests. It's like a dressing a Ken doll.

My most favorite rain clothes are my Shower's Pass Elite jacket which is really light, breathable, can be stuffed into a jersey pocket and it keeps me dry. I did a two hour rain ride a couple of weekends ago, and I was surprisingly dry when I got home -- a little soak through, but not terrible. That jacket is no longer made, and I got it on incredible close-out at Western Bikeworks. I don't commute in it because I don't want to wear it out. Note that every jacket soaks through. It's just a matter of time, unless you're wearing a old plastic jacket, and then you just sweat yourself wet.

My Gore booties are really old school -- kind of baggy with a simple Velcro rear closure -- but they keep my feet dryer than any other set of booties I've owned, and I've owned about a zillion sets of booties, including several pairs I built. The Gore booties get ratty on the soles, and I just zig-zag the hell out of them and throw in patches (old rip-stop pieces).

Nirvana would be a Gore booty with lots of reflective striping -- or all Illuminite/Scotchlite or whatever it is called today. Something that really pops when it gets hit by headlights. Endura makes a booty that fits the bill, and I might get a pair -- although I tend to beat up Endura booties pretty quickly.

For night riding, I have a Luxos B dyno, a pulsing L&M Urban 800 front light (pulse instead of blinding flash) that I jack-up to maximum output when I hit the trail section of my commute or when it is really storming, and an L&M Vis 180 tail light. Wet pavement eats light.

You are screwed if you wear glasses. There are times when I just can't see. I look over my glasses, and my eyes get pelted. And yes, that's when you try to find a low-consequence road, and you just go slower. You go slower anyway because there is usually a howling wind involved.

Fenders are critical around here, mostly as a social convention. You will be kicked out of polite cycling society if you're rooster-tailing the guys and gals behind you.

I switch to CX tires for shallow, fresh snow. Studs for older snow and a car for deep snow. Unless you have a fat bike, more than a few inches of unpacked snow is impossible (for me). Back to CX tires for slush -- or a car. I'm tired of crashing.

I do weekend rides with guys who have decades of experience racing, including racing in the rain -- which is what you do for the first half of the season around here. We do descents on twisting roads in the rain. And you know what, we go really slowly. Maybe faster than someone with no experience, but we just don't push it that hard. And nobody cares, but then again, nobody has factory-original bones either. I've separated my shoulder in a wet crash and broke my hand in October crashing over my son when he went down on wet pavement. It's not worth it to try to go fast. My son wasn't going that fast, but he had surprisingly ****ty tires in terms of wet grip. For a fast rain tire, I like my 25mm Pro 4s. They run large, and a true 28mm might be tight with the fenders on my Roubaix. A lot of my friends ride gravel bikes with 28mm tires and fenders for fast rain rides.

Thanks for an unusually informative post.

My fantasy would be for something that passes for near-normal clothing,
yet keeps me comfortable in the rain. I suppose we don't have the
technology yet, and perhaps never will.

The Shower's Pass Elite sounds nice, and I think you've mentioned it
before. My old Gore-Tex jacket seems to be made of 3 or 4 layers and is
pretty bulky. I've got a nicely packable Nike ACG Clima Fit jacket that
was touted as water and wind "resistant." I suppose that in the same
way it "resists" nuclear warheads. Just not very well.

For utility rides around town, I don't want to suit up in tights,
booties and day-glow. These days, my tactic is to keep checking weather
radar online until I see a hole in the rain pattern, wear a mostly
non-breathable rain jacket (pit zips only), ride slow and have a rain
cape in case it really starts dumping on me. Or just take the car,
unfortunately.

I've never tried a cape and hate anything that flaps, but I know there are some cape fans out there.

If I were doing straight utility riding and needed my street clothes on underneath, I would wear rain pants -- which is what I used to do. Booties are a must, and my Gore booties fit over street shoes. Then I would wear my commuter jacket, which is a pretty tough Goretex jacket with minimal venting. And, of course, fenders on my bike.

I wear bike clothes to work even though the short version of the commute is just five miles. I do that because I change into wool slacks and a button down shirt when I get to work, and I'm not going to ride in that stuff.

BTW, don't discount day-glow. If I were buying only one rain jacket, it would be day-glow. You can really see day-glow jackets on rainy days -- more so than lights, except the full-power blinking lights that should be banned as torture.

-- Jay Beattie.