Riding Bikes in Rain
Rain bikes, rain clothing, and other tips to make riding in the rain as comfortable as possible
Tom Mereckis, November 2024
I’ve lived in the Seattle area for 25 years and have been a year-round cyclist that whole time. I started road racing soon after moving here, and did base endurance training all winter in order to be ready for races in the relatively dry half of the year. Even when I haven’t raced during some years living here, I still maintain nearly the same annual cadence of training, so at this point I’ve got a quarter century of experience riding in the cold, dark, and wet (often all three conditions at once), and I want to share what I’ve learned about how to make the experience as comfortable as possible.
Or maybe I should phrase it, “as minimally uncomfortable as possible”. For those of you who ride a lot, you know cycling usually entails one or more points of discomfort at any given time. Riding in the cold-dark-wet half of the year in the Pacific Northwest adds another element of discomfort, though in my experience, it is discomfort that you can mitigate enough to make it worth riding.
I’ll cover this in two sections: Your rain bike, and your clothing and other gear. A few of these tips are my own original thoughts, but most are learned from other riders in area.
Rain Bikes
A rain bike is a road or gravel bike with fenders on it. It’s probably most common in the Pacific Northwest coastal areas where it’s wet about half the year. People use them to commute most commonly and to train for bike racing or big trips during warmer times of the year.
The first main rule of choosing a rain bike is the same as all bikes: Make sure it fits you. I won’t cover general bike fitting here, but will just say that grinding away in bad weather on a bike that doesn’t fit makes it more likely you’ll just not ride the thing. So get one that truly fits you in every way.
Another major consideration is whether to get a nice bike versus a clunker. Most people pick a clunker because they figure a rain bike will experience more wear due to the gritty and wet conditions it’s ridden in, and why destroy an expensive bike that way. Good point. On the other hand, if you’re a high mileage cyclist and maybe spinning long base endurance miles all winter, there’s a strong argument to make your rain bike a nice bike simply because you’ll spend so much time on it.
The final consideration is ensuring the bike you have or will buy can fit tires and fenders you want to ride. Nearly all bikes now are equipped with disc brakes, which in my mind, produced the main benefit of opening up rim and tire widths that had previously been constrained by having to fit under rim brake calipers. But still, many road race-focused frames and forks will limit your fender/tire choices. I own two rain bikes and picked them based on this: An all-road bike that fits 37mm wide fenders and 32mm tires, and a gravel bike that fits 45mm fenders and 37mm wide tires (actual tire measurements, not just “c” size). If you want your rain bike to fit “permanent” full fenders, you should get a bike with fender mounts front and rear. You or your local bike shop can MacGyver fenders onto a bike that lacks those mounts, but it’s harder to do and less secure when riding. If you’re not sure how to figure this all out, go to a bike shop that can help you.
Fenders are the next choice to make. You have options ranging from temporary clip-ons that have less to very little coverage, to a variety of full coverage bolt-on fenders. If you’re just riding by yourself, you can get away with clip-ons that have less coverage in the rear, but if you ride with others in bad weather, you should have full fenders and “buddy flaps”. Actually, only the rear flap, ideally hanging just a few inches off the ground, is for your buddies so when they are sucking your wheel you dramatically reduce the amount of spray you kick up into them. The front flap is mostly for you, because a flap extending down nearly to the ground in front will keep spray off your shins and feet. If you ride in groups in winter, you’ll notice that riders with less coverage are usually asked to stay in the back of the group in order to not spray the other riders who have full coverage. In short, full fenders + flaps are good for you and the polite way to treat your riding pals: Win-win. My favorite fenders by a big margin are Portland Design Works Full Metal. PDW mudflaps are also nice — the right width and a good balance between weight to make them hang down and flex to make them bend in a headwind a bit.
A few other fine points on equipment choices: I like to ride tubeless tires all the time on every bike, and have done so for more than half a decade. The early days of road tubeless were frustrating, but standards have tightened up and now the vast majority of modern tubeless tires fit on the vast majority of modern tubeless rims. Tires are fatter, and with that, pressures are lower, helping make tires both more resistant to punctures and easier to seal if you do puncture. Wet grit in winter can penetrate wet tires more easily than when dry, and on top of that, winter is the least fun time of year to fix a flat roadside. So prevention is the goal for me. I’d rather spend extra time prepping my equipment in my garage in order to avoid surprise fixes on a cold and wet roadside. My tires this winter are 32c Conti 5000 AS on one bike, and 35c Schwalbe G-One RS on the other. I have not had a flat on those or previous similar tires in at least 6 years and many thousands of miles. Another trick is to carefully check your tires between rides for embedded sharp debris and cuts. I’ve probably prevented flats by picking out debris in my garage more times that I can count. I’ve also trashed a few tires after discovering a cut that seemed to be too big to risk riding.
Safety when riding in low visibility conditions becomes more of a concern. I have lights on the front of my bikes plus the rear of my helmet. Lights on the front are always on my rain bikes, and when I ride in pre-dawn darkness, I use the excellent Outbound Detour, which is differentiated by having a cutoff at the top of the beam like vehicle headlights. If I ride in daylight, I might switch that bigger headlight out for a smaller front blinker. I zip-tie a red blinker to my helmet, angling it so that it shines in a flat direction when the helmet is in riding position on my head. I like Cygolite Dice for front and read blinkers because they are small, easy to mount, bright, and last many hours in blinking mode.
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My friend Ben introduced me to waxed chains a few years ago and my only regret is not adopting them years ago. There is some up-front work involved prepping your chains, but then after that you can usually hose them off after a ride and can skip the more intensive drivetrain cleaning routine.
Check your brake pads frequently, because gritty conditions speed wear. Disc brakes are also noisy in wet and gritty weather, but after a little experimentation, I found Swissstop Disc RS yellow compound pads to at least cancel most of the noise. Though the downside is that they wear even faster and are expensive.
Rain Clothing and Other Gear
Here are some quick clothing and body equipment tips:
Nearly every helmet made touts its ventilation. In winter, I don’t want much ventilation. I fact, I want to keep cold air and rain off my head. Years ago I figured out that I could use an aero road helmet (the kind with as few vents as possible) and duct tape the front and top vents shut. I keep the rear vents open to help evaporate my head. Works great.
You’ll want to wear a hat of some kind under your helmet. If precipitation is falling, I use a waterproof cycling cap with a flip up/down brim. In cold but dry weather, I have a few thicknesses of insulated and sometimes windproof helmet liners that covers my ears.
Clothing colors are something to consider too, and generally the choice is between bright versus blacked out or muted. I try to use bright colors if there is a choice. But I think today’s modern LED lights, front and rear, give us 90% of our visibility anyway, so it’s probably okay to ride with dark clothing if you’re lit. I just wouldn’t ride all blacked out without lights in rain and/or darkness. I actually wouldn’t do that on a sunny July day either, but I can see on the roads that I am in the minority on that.
I have winter shoes too. They’re my regular warm weather shoes, but a half size bigger to fit thick socks. I also use clear waterproof silicone to seal the bottom vents of those shoes to keep cold air and water out. I think this is a super important detail.
For socks, I just have a few different thicknesses of merino, and also different lengths from crew to full lower leg coverage depending on temperature. Some people use waterproof socks, but I do my waterproofing with shoe covers and sealing my shoes.
Legs are one of the two body parts that will get wet first. I have an array of leg warmers, tights, and rain pants. I only use tights without chamois/pad so I can just wear my normal shorts underneath. I find this more comfortable and more economical if you are doing lots of winter miles, because if you buy fancy tights and the pad wears out, the tights become useless and you’ll need to replace them. For most PNW rain, which falls at low rates rather than deluges normally, these non-waterproof leg coverings allow enough protection to enable your own body heat to evaporate the water while you ride. But if it’s nuking rain and you are wearing leg warmers or tights, you will eventually have wet legs. If you absolutely must ride on a very rainy day, then investing in a pair of true rain pants is worth considering. These are baggy and made of similar non-stretchy (or minimally stretchy) material as rain jackets, and they need to have internally taped seams to be effective. I have a pair but have only ridden them several times. I save them for the worst must-ride days because I assume my pedaling motion will rub the material on the inside thigh area and render the pants ruined pretty quickly. So I rarely use them, but when I do, I’m glad I have them.
I also have a few choices of shoe covers, generally some thinner waterproof and others that are thicker and somewhat breathable for cold but dry days. I don’t expect my covers to be both breathable and waterproof, and I err on the side of waterproof. I always need a zipper in the back to get then on and off easily. For all shoe covers, the bottom is uncovered, and this is why you should seal the bottom of your shoes or else water will get in. My friends Chris and Bill also turned me onto a brand called Spatz, which are knee-high and probably the ultimate protection, though water can still get in over the top in really heavy rain. I save these for gravel rides in nasty weather.
For cycling jackets, like all outdoor sports jackets, we generally have the choice of waterproof vs. softshell vs. insulated. But the reason you should consider a true made-for-cycling jacket is sleeve length and tail (back) length. Cycling jackets are made to fit well when you are leaned over in a cycling position, keeping your sleeves long enough to cover your wrists and your jacket back covering your lower back and maybe top of glutes. I also pick jackets with a non-elastic wrist cuff because that keeps some air flow open going up the sleeve from hands to torso, and I can tuck my glove cuffs under the jacket cuffs to keep water out of my gloves. For rain jackets, I want no external pocket (wear a jersey underneath with pockets). External pockets are okay for jackets meant to ride on dry days. In my opinion, there is nothing magical about Goretex, and that includes their recently discontinued Shakedry material. I own a few Goretex jackets including the recently discontinued Shakedry and I prefer both of my Polartec Neoshell jackets because they are slightly softer and still completely waterproof. Honestly, riding Neoshell for over a decade now, and comparing it favorably to anything from Goretex, I’m convinced that either Goretex has a great marketing department, or Polartec has terrible marketing — or both. A note on “waterproof”: When riding in rain, I do not expect a miracle of dryness. I expect cold rain to stay out, and am okay with a little warm clamminess inside my jacket. I use the sleeve cuff openings and the main zipper to vent it needed. Pit zips are fine, but not essential.
Gloves are tied with legs as the biggest vulnerable point for getting wet. There’s no such thing as gloves that are both waterproof and breathable, and my guess for why is that it’s infeasible to tape all the seams inside the glove. I usually wear merino liners if it is really wet because that material retains a little heat when wet. My friend Bill and a few others use neoprene gloves in such conditions because they are okay trading keeping cold rain out while trapping 100% of warm sweat inside. I use them on some really nasty days too for that reason. Otherwise, revel in the fact that only your hands and legs get wet while your core and head stay dry. Regardless of glove material, all my gloves have a narrow cuff so that my non-elasticized jacket sleeve cuffs can fit over the glove cuff to give you a little extra ventilation plus keep water from rolling down your sleeve and into the inside of your gloves (IMO this is super important). I have one pair of really thickly insulated gloves for the coldest temperatures that have a wide cuff and I purposely like those glove cuffs to fit over the jacket sleeve cuff to stop that cold air from entering into the sleeves on days riding in sub-freezing temperatures. (Edit: My friend Larry reminded me that gloves should have a patch of soft snot-wiping material on the thumb).
The ideal eye protection is photochromatic, because riding in the PNW in winter might entail night riding, riding in low daylight, and riding in sun that glares at you both at a low angle and then bounces light off wet pavement into your eyes on top of that. It’s hard to predict what you’ll get on many rides, so it’s helpful to have a single pair of glasses that can adapt. I’m near-sighted on top of all that, so my photochromatic glasses are prescription.
That’s it! What did I forget or get wrong? I’d like to hear if you have more and/or better options than what I offered here.
