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A winter commuter in Salt Lake City. The balaclava is pulled down below the beard; the jacket hood can be raised to cover the helmet's vents. |
I'd like to plant a big wet one on whoever it was who first designed the bike poncho. Unlike the comparatively exorbitant rain suits, which trap so much of the body's heat that most of the time you're as wet inside from sweat as you would have been from the rain, tentlike ponchos allow massive amounts of air to circulate beneath the top flap. The back flap ties around your waist (keeping the corners from flapping in the breeze or looking for your rear spokes), and thumb loops keep the poncho stretched out nicely to your handlebars. Yes, in heavy snows the flakes collect in the area between your outstretched arms, but this is easy to toss overboard when you stop. And yes, it's true, a $25 last-forever poncho catches a lot of wind and thus will slow you down much more than will a $300 Gore-Tex suit. But we're talking touring, remember, not racing, and cycle touring should be thought of as travel on two wheels. If you're in a hurry as you travel, buy a motorcycle. Besides, Gore-Tex doesn't work in the rain, since water closes off the microscopic holes through which the fabric breathes. I've tested Gore-Tex suits that, liberally equipped with zippers and vents, worked minimally better in cooler temperatures at keeping me from sweating to death than did non-Gore-Tex suits with the same design (which cost some two-thirds less). But that's a lot of dough for a minimal improvement.
If rain fell straight down always, and if cars never splashed us from the sides, a poncho alone would do the job no matter the season. In warmer temps I add a pair of gaiters and rain boots; on spring and fall rides I add a pair of chaps (full-leg coverings that tie off at the waist, thus leaving open the heat-generating lower torso while still protecting the above-the-gaiter leg from cold rain and spray). The poncho overlaps the tops of the chaps, the chaps overlap the gaiters, the gaiters overlap the open portions of your riding shoes or rain boots. And so a droplet on the top of your hood cascades down like water on successive roof tiles.
Until the recent development of rain-shedding fleece I still chose to pack a rain suit in winter, which I wore most often unzipped beneath a poncho. But here again is the importance of personal differences. I've toured with riders who much prefer suits to ponchos, and while I thought them ninnies at first and looked forward, in a mean sort of way, to watching them peel off wet layers in camp and to hearing them carp about how miserable they were, they seemed tolerably dry and happy. The point is that you've got options.
Where are you going?
What do you want to do?
