First ride in full rain gear in awhile this morning. It was nice and mild, so I took the opportunity to ride for 11.5 miles, including a loop through Patapsco State Park. Most of my rain gear is the same as last year, including Novara rain pants (REI house brand), Patagonia TorrentShell rain jacket, and neoprene shoe covers from Performance. New for this season is a pair of Seirus Hyperlite All Weather gloves. I bought these because I wanted a pair of lightweight, reasonably weatherproof gloves. I already have some cheap light gloves, but they aren’t waterproof, and I wanted something I could wear in the rain. The Hyperlites did the job pretty well. They breathe OK and do a decent job of repelling water. They’re not as good as Gore-Tex, but they’re not as expensive as Gore-Tex either.
The Performance shoe covers are still as good as ever. My shoes and feet stayed bone dry for the entire ride. Out of all body parts, the feet are the most important to keep dry during a rainy ride. If your feet get wet, a rainy ride can go from enjoyable to miserable in no time flat. I keep telling myself I need to go to Performance and pick up another pair or two of these, in case they do something stupid like discontinue them or cut back on the quality.
Lately, my cyclometer, a Cateye Velo 5, has been getting really flaky. It keeps losing connectivity between the unit and the base. If I press down on it and fiddle with it a bit, it will pick back up. However today, I couldn’t get it to work at all in the rain. I’m not sure if this is the result of oxidation on the terminals, loose connection due to general degradation, or a combination of both. Regardless, it’s getting annoying. I may try coating the terminals with some anti-oxidation gel, and see if that helps at all. Stay tuned.