What to wear in the rain on your bike commute (and what not to wear!)

hey guys tom here again today for shifter a channel all about urban cycling and bike commuting we're in the midst of a rainy period we don't get a whole lot of rain but when we do my attitude in the past has always been just to power through it so i thought it's probably time to start thinking about how to ride better day to day in an urban transportation kind of way through the rain so that's what the today's mission is the big question about riding your bike in the rain has always been what do you wear so i'm going to try a few things that's come along with me on this little wet journey that sounds weird and we'll figure out the best thing to wear so my first thing is this really light sort of water resistant jacket it's not totally waterproof so the other day i did have this on i did get a little bit wet still underneath it but it wasn't terrible one thing i did notice is that when i put the hood up on this it doesn't have any straps so when i was riding the wind sort of picked it up and pulled it off my head which is not that useful so my head did get wet so this is stage one and i've already found it a little bit wanting okay so i've learned a couple things already wearing that uh jacket i had in the last shot i was out this morning and i got totally drenched i think it's barely water resistant so i've upgraded already what i've got now is a gore-tex jacket it's somewhat breathable but completely waterproof i'm gonna ride a bit in the rain and see how the gore-tex jacket does oh also one other thing i did having learned this morning this is my priority continuum onyx and it's got fenders [Music] this is a great jacket maybe not perfect in this situation for one thing it's not that long so my legs are getting wet as you pedal your knees come up and it sort of comes out of the jacket and that's not ideal also it's hot so it's not perfect so you know what i'm going to do now i'm going to the internet i'm going to ask on twitter and on the youtube community tab if you guys have any thoughts see what i can learn ashley says rain is fun agreed an old-fashioned rubber over shoes ivan says pedal faster than the raindrops bring an extra outfit to stay dry where you arrive from someone in a tropical country indonesia who says if you wear a raincoat your bottle your body will get very wet with your own sweat elise says she wears her chelsea boots yeah that works so a couple people have suggested rain pants so if you've got the combination of rain pants raincoat and some waterproof feet you're pretty much covered i think i just find the problem with rain pants two things is they make you hot again and also i don't to arrive at my destination and have to like take pants off i mean what if you're going to the pub or to the grocery store and you have to strip some pants off that's just weird alex says i used to work in a bike shop and i would bike to work in sundresses and skirts in the rain i don't have a lot of experience in this area but i assume a sundress and skirt would drive it quicker and then here's some advice from michelle who runs a great uh youtube channel called ride on cycling out of the uk you should totally follow her i learn a lot from her she says she's been testing out the turcano urbano rain cape she's got good things to say about that what i'm hearing from a lot of people is that poncho might be the way to go lots of people are saying rain capes or rain ponchos michelle is recommending them here as well looking at all this advice i'm hearing a lot of people talk about a cycling specific poncho so i like this i did a poncho yeah maybe i should give it a try more rain so i'm back again and thank you everyone for those amazing suggestions after all of the research i've done and all those great conversations have come to a conclusion is that there's no consensus but what seems to be the case is that a lot of people who have experience in the rain more so than me say the way to go is the venerable poncho so i thought i would try out a poncho this time i've been looking for one for days i've not found a great poncho but i do have a poncho what i have right now is this poncho waterproof vinyl hood rain poncho it's kind of like one of those one time use only you know punches you take i don't know to camping or the football game or something but it's a poncho so let's give it a shot wow they sure look happy it's like a garbage bag i mean it's kind of like this right it's like have this really clothing [Music] well there you go we've got the poncho all right the pros and cons of this poncho on first impressions i've had it on for all of 10 seconds and uh i can think of a lot of cons not a lot of pros pros i'm i'm it's keeping me dry it does go down lower than my jacket so it should do a better job keeping my legs dry but also it's so thin it's definitely one time use only it's like totally unbreathable i'm already sweating and i haven't even started riding my bike yet so i'm skeptical but you know i'm here for you i'm gonna give this poncho a real try so yeah let's see what happens [Music] okay i didn't have to ride that pancho for long also rainbow anyway this poncho is terrible as soon as i put my leg over the seat it tore at the bottom couldn't keep the hood up it kept blowing off he's kept blowing up on my arms hot and sweaty and sticky it looked like a used condom so it's not great there's not a lot of good things to say about this poncho however it did give me the sense that poncho might be the way to go take this one off throw in the garbage and probably never use it again and apologize to the world for one-time use of plastics do not buy one of these uh they are no good i'm gonna do some research now getting a proper poncho built for cycling see what i can find and then we'll give the poncho it's real test i gotta go get rid of this thing okay so after the fiasco of that cheap plastic poncho i went back to the drawing board and tried to find a quality poncho and thanks to some of your great suggestions uh thanks so much everyone for sharing and for some research in the pancho world there are two clear leaders there is cleverhood which is an american company it makes a great cycling poncho and there is the people's pancho which is a british company which also makes a great cycling poncho or cycling cape whichever you prefer cape sounds a bit darth vadery for me and it's fun to say pancho so i call it the pancho so i would say i haven't tried those but by all accounts those are great brands if you want to go for those because we're in the midst of a pandemic in all of the associated terribleness that comes with that i was trying to shop a bit local so i didn't want to order from the states or from the uk i had no luck finding a lot in canada except for this one i did find a canadian one which is called vod vaude vowed i'm not even sure how to pronounce it it's a brand out of quebec an outdoor brand and they have a cycling poncho this poncho is great they seem to have thought of everything on my hood it's got a drawstring so it'll stay on my head it won't fly off it's even got these little windows on the side to maintain my my peripheral vision when i'm riding inside you probably can't see it's got these uh thumb loops or maybe full hand loops so that when you go over your handlebars you can uh hold the poncho in place it's got a waist strap so that it doesn't flap too much behind you it's even got armholes for those of us who talk with their hands uh they'll probably give you a little ventilation as well and it's got a pocket up front here so all in all i am quite impressed this is a well-designed uh well-built poncho for a decent price and now i just need it to rain anyway even if it doesn't rain i feel totally confident in this poncho it's gonna get me through the next rainstorm so i think i've answered the question i set out to answer when we started this which was how do you survive the rain on a bike and thanks to all of you for all of your help i'm saying the pancho is the answer thanks for watching see you next time yeah the poncho works

Channel: Shifter

Views: 223,885

Keywords: Cycling, Bike commuting, Commuting, Rain, bike in the rain, Cycling poncho, Cycling cape, Cycling in rain, Stay dry on bike

Id: b9ePnZtpciM

Length: 8min 39sec (519 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 10 2020