Well, some might recall a few years ago I was trying ideas for cycle clothing, and later followed up with some findings.

My situation has changed a bit… the death of a former work colleague shook me up quite a bit, and while I have been riding, I haven’t been doing it nearly as much. Then, COVID-19 reared its ugly head.

Suffice to say, my commute is now one side of the bedroom to the other. Right at this moment, I’m in self-imposed lockdown until I can get my booster shot: I had my second AstraZenica shot on the 4th November, and the Queensland Government has moved the booster shots to being 3 months after the second shot, so for me, that means I’m due on the 4th February. I’m already booked in with a local chemist here in The Gap, I did that weeks ago so that the appointment would be nailed to the floor, and thus currently I’m doing everything in my power to ensure that appointment goes ahead on-time.

I haven’t been on the bike much at all. That doesn’t mean though that I stop thinking about how I can make my ride more comfortable.

Castle Clothing Coveralls

They had quite few positives:

• They were great in wet weather
• They were great in ambient temperatures below 20°C
• The pocket was handy for storing keys/a phone/a wallet
• They had good visibility day and night
• They keep the wind out well. (On the Main Range, Threadbo Top Station was reporting 87km/hr wind gusts that day.)

But, they weren’t without their issues:

• They’re (unsurprisingly) no good on a sunny summer’s day (on the day that photo was taken, it was borderline too hot, weather prediction was for showers and those didn’t happen)
• They’re knackered after about 30 washes or so: the outer waterproof layer peels off the lining
• In intermittent rain / sunshine, they’d keep you dry during the rainy bit, but when the sun came out, you’d get steamed

To cap it off, they’re no longer being manufactured. Castle Clothing have basically canned them. They’ve got a plain yellow version with no stripes, but otherwise, nothing like their old product. I wound up buying 4 of them in the end… the first two had to be chucked because of the aforementioned peeling problem, the other two are in good condition now, but eventually they’ll need replacement.

Mammoth Workwear do have some alternatives. The “Supertouch” ones I have tried, they’re even shorter lived than the Castle ones, and feel like wearing a plastic bag. The others are either not night-time visible, or they’re lined for winter use.

So, back to research again.

Zentai suits?

Now, I know I’ve said previously I’m no MAMIL… and for the most part I stand by this. I did try wearing a stinger suit on the bike once… on the plus side they are very breathable, so quite comfortable to ride in. BUT, three negatives with stinger suits:

• while there are brightly-coloured versions… they seem to be unobtainium.
• the mittens are useless
• most are plastered with logos

That got me thinking, what’s the difference between a stinger suit and an open-face zentai suit? Not a lot. The zentai suit, if it has gloves, can be bought as a “mitten” or (more commonly) a proper multi-finger glove version. They come in a lot more colours than a stinger suit does. They’re about the same price. And there’s no logos, just plain colours (or you can do various patterns/designs if that’s your thing).

A downside is that the zipper is at the back, which means answering calls from nature is more difficult. But then again, some stinger suits and most wetsuits also feature a back-entry.

I’ve got two coming to try the idea out. I suspect they’ll get worn over other clothing, I’ll just duck into a loo, take my shirt off, put the zentai suit on, then jump on the bike to ride to my destination… that way my shirt isn’t soaked with sweat. We’ll see.

One is a black one, which was primarily bought to replace one of the stinger suits for swimming activities, but I can also evaluate the fabric too (it is the usual lycra material).

The other is a silver one (thus a lycra/latex blend), to try out the visibility — it’ll be interesting to see whether it’s somewhat water-repellent due to the latex mix in the material, and see what effect this has on sweat.

Both of these are open-face! You should never try swimming with a full-face zentai suit. I can’t imagine getting caught in the rain ending well either, and the ability to see where you’re going is paramount when operating any vehicle (especially a bicycle)!

They’ll turn up in a week or two, I can try them out then. Maybe won’t be the final solution, but it may answer a few questions.

Heavy Wet/Cold weather gear

So, with the lighter-weight class out of the way, that turns my attention to what to do in truly foul weather, or just bitterly cold weather.

Now, let me define the latter: low single digits °C. Possibly with a westerly breeze carrying it. For some reading this, this will feel like a hot summer’s day, but for those of us in Brisbane, temperatures this low are what we see in the middle of winter.

The waterproof overalls I was wearing before worked well in dry-but-cold weather, however I did note my hands copped the cold… I needed gloves. The ends of the legs also could get tangled with the chain if I wasn’t careful, and my shoes would still get wet. Riggers boots work okay for this, but they’re hard to come by.

I happened to stumble on Sujuvat ratkaisut Oy, who do specialist wet-weather clothing meant for Europe. Meeko (who runs the site) has a commercial relationship with a few manufacturers, notably AJGroup who supply the material for a lot of Meeko’s “extreme” range.

The suits are a variant of PVC, which will mean they’re less breathable than what I have now, but should also mean they’re a lot more durable. There’s a decent range of colours available, with many options having the possibility of reflective bands, attached gloves and attached wellington boots. It’s worth noting the BikeSuit (no longer available) I was looking at 8 years ago was also a PVC outfit.

In the winter time, the big problem is not so much sweat, but rather, sweat being hit by wind-chill. Thus I’m ordering one of the Extreme Drainage Coveralls to try them out.

I’ve seen something similar out of AliExpress, however the options there are often built for the Chinese market… so rarely feature size options that fit someone like myself. Most of the Chinese ones are dark colours, with one “tan”-coloured option listed, and a couple of rubber ones that were lighter colours (a dark “pink”, and a yellow). Some of the rubber ones also had a strange opening arrangement: a tube opening in the stomach, which you pulled yourself through, then clamped shut with a peg. Innovative, but looks very untidy and just begging to get caught in something! I’ll stick with something a bit more conventional.

The coverall I’m ordering will be a 500g/m² white fabric… so about twice the weight of my current Castle workwear overalls (which are about 330g/m²), and will have the gloves and boots attached. I’m curious to see how that’s done up close, and see how it works out in my use case.

Being a white rather than a yellow/orange will make them less visible in the day time, but I suspect this won’t be much of an issue as it’s night-time visibility I’m particularly after. Also, being white instead of a “strong” fluro colour will likely be better at horse endurance rides, as horses tend to react to fluro colours.

The zip arrangement intrigues me as well… it’s been placed up high so that you can pretty much wade into water up to your chest and not get wet. There’s a lighter-weight option of the same suit, however with fewer options for colours. If the extreme version doesn’t work out for cycling, I might look at this alternative (the bike doesn’t react to strong colours like a horse does).

There’s about a 2-month lead-time on this gear because it’s made-to-order, a reasonable trade-off given you get to more-or-less get it made exactly how you want it. Looking around, I’m seeing off-the-shelf not-customisable outfits at AU$400 a pop, €160 (~AU$252) is looking a good option.

The fact that this is being run as a small side-hustle is commendable. I look forward to seeing the product.