Wet & Woolly

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12/17/2010: "Wet & Woolly"

While Portland's suffering the kind of torrential downpours we briefly receive here in SoCal in mid-winter, we're enjoying a bit of "Oregon sunshine." A leaden sky has been dropping mist, drizzle, and light rain since early morning...so when I headed out on a ride to the Bridge at the end of Ballona Creek, I packed my rain cape in the pannier--in case the storm got a little more enthusiastic--and decided to see just how well my beloved wool would do under direct exposure to the rain.

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Kit consisted of Bicycle Fixation Wool Knickers and knicker socks on the bottom, a T-shirt under an old Italian navy wool sweater on top, and a James Black Hat covering my bald spot under the helmet. (See all but the sweater here.) An ancient and decidedly un-waterproof wind shell went over the sweater

I'm pleased to say that wool lived up to its "warm when wet" reputation--and that it didn't even get too wet. For most of the ride, the wooly bits dried off at about the same rate that the drizzled dampened them, and once I had generated a bit of my own heat by pedaling I felt entirely comfortable. (My glasses did get speckled, though, but that's just going to happen.)

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Rolled through back streets to one of the gates to the Ballona Creek bike path and headed west. Passed a few other riders on the way, and couldn't help but notice rain stripes up their backs--with fenders on the Bottecchia I didn't have to worry about that. Stopped a couple of times for pictures, and reached the Bridge and the flat grey Pacific in good time. Very few folks around, so I took the photo of my bike and headed back.

Now I was riding into the full force of a cold, hard wind that drove the rain against me with a tiny pattering sound, snickering as it were at my presumption. It was blowing hard enough to slow me down considerably, but despite the cold and the driven rain, I was still comfortable. By the time I arrived at the end of the bike path and returned to city streets, the wind had lessened but the rain had increased. I thought about getting the rain cape out--a rain cape with fenders is about the best way I've found to ride in rain--but figured what the hell, let's take it a little further!

Yes, I got wetter. But...I didn't get colder. And when I got home, wiped down the bike, wiped my face with the handkerchief I always carry, and looked in the stairwell mirror, I saw that I was still presentable, though a little damp. In a coffeehouse, for example, no one would have know that I was wet. (Unless they looked at my shoes!)

So, yeah, next time I will break out the cape much sooner. But this was a 25-mile ride. It's good to know that for shorter utility rides on rainy days, I will often be able to skip the rain gear entirely...as long as I'm wearing wool