Mar 1 – The Great Rain Gear Operational Test #1

On my ride to Alaska last year I discovered the hard way that my new Rev’It outfit wasn’t exactly the best rain gear around. During the first day in a really hard downpour I got totally soaked within an hour and needless to say I wasn’t a happy camper when I had to buy a rain suit to wear over my rain gear. From Wal-Mart no less… When I got home I ordered up a bottle each of NixWax Tech Wash and NixWax TX Direct Wash-In water proofing treatment and ran the Rev’It outfit through the works. It seems to have helped as today I really put it through the acid test riding nearly 100 miles through a very tough rain storm. Some water got through but compared to the Alaska boondoggle it would probably be an acceptable amount. It’s still far from perfect though and as I write this the entire outfit is disassembled and hanging all over the house drying.

I’m now curious to see how well my old leathers used together with a separate rain suit will fare. That’s what I wore on my first ride to Alaska 3 years ago and unless my memory is totally shot it worked better than the Rev’It outfit. The main reason I bought the Rev’It was for the flexibility it offered; a removable rain liner and a removable winter liner after which removed left a light weight shell with zippered vents to be opened in hot weather. All of this constructed from the latest high-tech fabrics that promised to deliver the best performance in any kind of weather. Maybe the Rev’It people haven’t had to deal with hard driving rain storms? If it’s still pouring down tomorrow I’ll suit up in the cow hide costume and have another go at it.

You can see by the photos I was carrying a full load of gear, pretty much the same as I’ll be taking on the run to Nova Scotia. I wanted to see how the bike handled with everything on board plus I wanted to see how water resistant the bags were. I’d sprayed them with silicone based water repellant carefully following the manufacturer’s instructions and hoped they would magically become water proof. Not. It looks like I had it right 3 years ago when I covered everything with the manufacturer’s plastic rain covers. Those work fine but they tend to come apart after a couple of weeks unless you ride around 40 mph. Not even I can ride that slowly.