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Old 03-24-10, 10:39 PM
  #16  
Carbonfiberboy 
just another gosling
 
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Everett, WA
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Bikes: CoMo Speedster 2003, Trek 5200, CAAD 9, Fred 2004

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The biggest problem with keeping feet dry, you see, is that the water just runs down your legs and into your shoes. A neat trick for feet, especially for very long rain rides, is to wear waterproof winter boots, like Lakes. You put replacement dry suit leg seals, trimmed to fit you, on your naked ankles and stretch them down over the tops of the Lakes. So the seals are upside down. Your tights or leg warmers go over the seals and your regular wool short bike socks are below them. This works incredibly well.

You can do an impromptu version of this by getting vegetable bags at a grocery store and cutting the bottoms out, so they're cylinders. You wrap the top of the bag around your naked ankles. The bottom of the bag goes over your shoe and your bootie goes over the bag. Your tights or leg warmers go over the top of the bags and holds them in place. This works pretty well, plenty good enough for a 200.

I don't care for the fancy jackets like Showers Pass, etc., because they don't pack down to the size of a grapefruit. Since nothing is going to keep you dry, might as well go for the thinnest windproof thing you can find. Then you don't need a giant bag to pack all that stuff in when you take it off - it usually does stop raining sometime - and it won't weigh so much wet or dry. Look at O2 and the cheap Performance jacket.

The whole point of rain clothing is to limit the number of changes per hour, as they talk about air in house design. Rain is going to get in, but you limit the rate of it getting in to the amount that your body can warm. It's the wetsuit concept. Though I do try to keep my feet dry because of the trenchfoot thing. When my feet get wet, they go numb after a while and it's uncomfortable.
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