Seeing that winter is upon us, and a few fellow mad dogs has been playing in the rain too, I'll write a quick review of the mentioned kit.
On the 16th of April I left home to drive up to JHB, weather forecast as clear and bright as a button.
Anyway, as the saying goes, "if its too good to be true, it probably is"
The next day about 100km south of Kimberly it started raining and I mean RAINING, I planned to sleep over in Warrenton, so I pushed on. It took about 2 hours to get there, in soaking rain
The next morning, stil cloudy and after about an hours riding it started pouring again, and didnt let up until I reached Jhb/Kempton Park. That was about 5 hours of serious soaking.
I was wearing Lookwell Endeavour Jacket and Pants, with rain and cold weather insert. This worked like a charm, the rain insert on its own will be too cold for bad weather riding.
Not a single wetspot or cold trickle down the spine. Kept me warm and dry throughout the ride.
I hung the kit over a chair in Warrenton, and it was fully dried out the next morning.
The only complaint I have about the set-up is the time it takes to asemble it, definately not something to be done in the rain. Also keep valuables somwhere else as NONE of the pockets are waterproof.
The Oxtar boots were perfect, not a drop of water got inside, and no cold feet.
ie GoreTex is your friend. I did wear the pants over the boots for obvious reasons. They also dried out fairly quickly, so the leather didn't bsorb too much water.
Arai Tour X, kept my head dry, but misted up faster and heavier than a VW Kombi at a drive-in. As you might have guessed I didnt get the FogCity insert either. The ventilation couldnt clear it, and I was forced to ride with the visor half open, and physically wipe it from time to time - not fun when its raining hard and visiblity is already bad. I'm sure some Fogit or the famed insert would pervent this in future.
The BMW Airflow cloves, deserve praise, although it got soaking wet, my hands were never cold, obviously the heated grips helped there.
Well I hope anybody in the market for winter gear will find this usefull. All gear, exept the Arai, are at least a year or 15 000km + old. Well used and washed a number of times. So no fesh-out-of -the-box waterproofing etc.
On the 16th of April I left home to drive up to JHB, weather forecast as clear and bright as a button.
Anyway, as the saying goes, "if its too good to be true, it probably is"
The next day about 100km south of Kimberly it started raining and I mean RAINING, I planned to sleep over in Warrenton, so I pushed on. It took about 2 hours to get there, in soaking rain
The next morning, stil cloudy and after about an hours riding it started pouring again, and didnt let up until I reached Jhb/Kempton Park. That was about 5 hours of serious soaking.
I was wearing Lookwell Endeavour Jacket and Pants, with rain and cold weather insert. This worked like a charm, the rain insert on its own will be too cold for bad weather riding.
Not a single wetspot or cold trickle down the spine. Kept me warm and dry throughout the ride.
I hung the kit over a chair in Warrenton, and it was fully dried out the next morning.
The only complaint I have about the set-up is the time it takes to asemble it, definately not something to be done in the rain. Also keep valuables somwhere else as NONE of the pockets are waterproof.
The Oxtar boots were perfect, not a drop of water got inside, and no cold feet.
ie GoreTex is your friend. I did wear the pants over the boots for obvious reasons. They also dried out fairly quickly, so the leather didn't bsorb too much water.Arai Tour X, kept my head dry, but misted up faster and heavier than a VW Kombi at a drive-in. As you might have guessed I didnt get the FogCity insert either. The ventilation couldnt clear it, and I was forced to ride with the visor half open, and physically wipe it from time to time - not fun when its raining hard and visiblity is already bad. I'm sure some Fogit or the famed insert would pervent this in future.
The BMW Airflow cloves, deserve praise, although it got soaking wet, my hands were never cold, obviously the heated grips helped there.
Well I hope anybody in the market for winter gear will find this usefull. All gear, exept the Arai, are at least a year or 15 000km + old. Well used and washed a number of times. So no fesh-out-of -the-box waterproofing etc.
