That Sinking Feeling

I had been riding for about 3 hours in a steady rain. The temperature was about 50 deg F, but I was wearing all my gear. The new overboots were nicely tucked under by rain pants and my feet were warm and dry. The rain liner of my jacket was well sealed and the insulation keeping me warm. My rain overgloves kept my hands dry.

As I rode around State College, it was raining really hard. Even the cagers were going slow. Earlier, I had stopped for a drink in a little town surrounded by Amish farms. When I walked into the store, I left my helmet on at first, just to keep my head from getting wet, but I had to apologize to the store clerk for the puddle that formed around me on their nice clean floor.

As I picked up speed south of State College, I had that sinking feeling. There was something cold down in my crotch. Slowly, the feeling spread, first deeper into my crotch, then through out the seat of my pants. Cold, wet, uncomfortable.

If you can remember back to when you were in diapers, it's kind of the opposite feeling. Or rather, in the case of the diaper the spreading feeling was the same, but everything was warm instead of cold.

If you look at the photo, you can see a little gap, high up on my left leg. This picture is looking down while seated on the bike and was taken after I got home and with only my rain liner over my jeans. It turns out that rain was hitting the front of my jacket, flowing down into my lap and building up in the folds until it found a way through the gap and inside to make me cold and wet.


Trust me to find a problem in any product. The manufacturer has already acknowledged and fixed the issue for free. He said it was the first leak in the long history of their rain liner.

As for me, I spent several hours drying out in a restaurant and rode with a plastic grocery bag over the gap for the rest of the trip. I'm thinking that I finally have my gear safe from the rain. I sure hope so.