My quest for Life, The Universe & Everything continues. But mostly my efforts to find a glove that is warm, waterproof, and relatively-easy to get on without thinking you’d have to resort to vaseline on your fingers to get them through the glove’s inside liner. This morning’s ride was a good test for this, as it was raining and relatively cold (40 degrees up on Skyline). Much nicer than the 35 degrees a couple weeks ago, but still not in the range that one would consider fun. Mid-50 degree rain? That’s a piece of cake. You can really enjoy getting out in a major rainstorm when it’s that nice out!
The video below shows my latest failure in finding a winter rain glove-
I’ve tried Pearl Izumi, Louis Garneau, Bontrager, Gore and a few others. Always the same result; after about an hour, they soak through. In every case the glove would have been easily made much better if the cuff was long enough to go under the rain jacket and not make of a material that wicks water. This is such a brain-dead obvious thing that I just can’t believe people put up with it. There’s also the issue, which could be just me, that it’s difficult to get most gloves on in the first place, because trying to get your fingers up into the liner is nearly impossible and feels like you should be using vaseline (or worse).
Even if they fix the cuff issue, after an hour of riding in steady rain I still have water coming through the glove’s outer surfaces. Yes, even the much-heralded Gore gloves (whose palm, by the way, wears away very quickly… not impressive for an $80 glove). Is what I want really so impossible? What do the Euro racers use in the early-season Classics, known for their wind, cold and rain?
OK, now for the ride. It’s dark (the downside of daylight saving time), it’s raining, and I’m really thinking others will be out there? Nope. Just myself and Kevin (my son, not the pilot). We rode at a moderate pace up Kings and across Skyline, being careful not to get overheated and subsequently way too cold for the descents. 40 degrees up on top so still a cold rain, and pretty comfortably dressed everywhere except the hands. Yes, I’m frustrated about that. We actually skipped the west-side Old LaHonda loop because we needed to get down off the mountain as quickly as possible. Hate that! But hate even more that Strava lists the ride as an easy “80” on their “Suffer” score. Oh really? On our heavier rain bikes, with bigger tires & fenders and clothing made heavier by all the rain it had soaked up, and having to take great care descending and keeping out of the way of cars (because no way would we be descending at their speed today!). No, we weren’t “suffering” at all. 🙂
This was not an epic ride, but it was certainly worthy of more than an “80” on any scale of suffering that goes past 250.
