as you can see riding in the rain is totally fun
what's going on guys, Two Wheel Cruise here in Nagoya Japan
today we're going to be talking about cycling in the rain
I've got some good tips for you guys
I've been actually wanting to make this video for a while now
and today I had really good plans but the rain is kind of ruining my ride
so first we're gonna head back to the studio where it's nice and dry
and then we'll go over my tips for cycling in the rain
back here in the studio. nice and dry. I had a nice shower
today's ride was a bit miserable just being in the rain all day and if you've
seen our recent cycling vlogs when we traveled in Taiwan we've had enough with
the rain me and my wife and yeah I wasn't gonna do that today so I've been
actually wanting to make this video for a while so this video about my
recommendation and tips for cycling in the rain and I just have been
procrastinating procrastinating and just didn't have time to make the video but
today because of this rainy ride I finally have the motivation to do so so
let's go ahead and get started with the tips there's gonna be a lot that we're
gonna go over if you're new to the channel consider subscribing we make
videos about cycling and life in Japan anyway let's go ahead and begin
so the first thing I want to talk about is the things that we wear so like our
clothing and let's just start from the top down because it's easier to go in a
direction away so starting with the top your head is the first contact point
with the rain so and it really sucks if your hair gets wet and it's just
drenched forever so there are a couple different things that you can do to
avoid this if you saw earlier in the video I was wearing my hoodie from my
jacket and put it underneath my helmet so wearing some sort of hat or hoodie
underneath your helmet really reduces the amount of rain that gets in another
option is using like a cycling cap so we've got our two wheel crews cycling
caps for sale if you're interested you can check the link over there and yeah
so these work really good basically something in between your head and your
helmet so pretty simple right moving down another essential part that you
want to protect is your eyes so I really recommend using some sort of see-through
glasses because when it's raining it's usually darker than usual so so you
can't use your normal shades because it's too dark so I recommend getting
some sort of clear lens you can get cycling specific lenses but as you can
see what I have here is just something really cheap that I got at like a home
center like Home Depot or something like that so whatever works and these are
great they have a wider area so because these are like the home center
protection kind of glasses they have a bit more range for blocking the rain
that gets in so pretty solid of course the helmet itself so Aero helmets are
all the rage nowadays so the less ventilation above means there's less
rain coming through so if you have a more Aero style helmet or something that
has a complete block on the top then yeah it's sockson it's really hot in the
summer but you're protected from the rain so that's another thing that really
helps if you have a solid helmet okay moving down from the neck below we've
got our our main chest area so of course you're gonna want some sort of jacket
and there are a bunch of different cycling specific rain jackets that you
can get I found that most of these are really really overpriced and I tend to
use some sort of alternative solutions so if you have the money and you want to
invest in a really good cycling specific rain jacket go for it but you might want
to consider some alternatives as well if you want to save some money there's two
main types of jackets the soft shell and more hard shell kind so the soft shell
is kind of like this one here this one cost me about $30 and I just got the
at a general store here in Japan we have a store called Uniqlo so you can get
this there they still have these are really common they're really lightweight
they fold down really well they fit right in your pocket but the
disadvantage is they only work to a certain extent so as the rain comes down
heavier you're gonna start to get wet and you don't really have complete
protection and you're just gonna get soaked no matter what the other option
is the hardshell so the more complete waterproof jacket we've got a clip here
with my wife modeling these from a couple months back when I wanted to
start making this video check this out I mean no heat on OGE I mean I do
omid I do Karina I mean also good if you live in a country or place with a lot of
rain like Japan there's a lot of clothing available for rain so rain
preventative clothing you can see the clothing here that my wife is wearing
has a scent so you get the upper half jacket and you also get the pants below
so the pants are great these are obviously not something that you want to
wear if you're going for a serious training ride but if you're just
commuting into work or something or you need to go run some errands it's a
really great solution because you're just completely protected and you can
just take it all off when you get there it's kind of a trade-off do you want
something that's light and breathable but not completely waterproof or do you
want something that's a hundred percent waterproof but then heavier and bulkier
and more getting in the way next let's talk about Footwear so your normal
cycling shoes are just gonna get soaked and that's that's pretty much all there
is to it there are some solutions to get around
this for example there are shoe covers that will completely cover your shoe and
they're really hard to get on because they fit so tight that the water can't
get in for example I think Velo toes is one of these companies I don't
personally use any of these but I do know people who have used them and
recommend them highly so that's a pretty good option if you want something for
your more serious rights with the socks as well you want to pick socks that
don't absorb so much so smaller socks are generally better if you're just
commuting what I like to do is I like to wear my sandals or flip-flops that have
sort of more hard soles so the reason I do this is because if you're gonna wear
socks or something they're just gonna get wet anyway so I just bring my pair
of shoes to where I need to go or I just leave a pair of work shoes in my office
so when I get there I just put on my shoes and I have my socks
there all right I think we talked about most of the main body parts let's talk
about some accessories as well so for commuting and regular riding you're
likely to be carrying a bit of luggage and one of the ways that I do this is
with a backpack or some sort of Camelback like this so you'll see that
this bag is not waterproof you'll likely want to pick something that is
waterproof but in the case that it's not waterproof there are some things that
you can do for example you can get a plastic shell to go around your bag this
one actually comes with it in in the bottom here so we see that this pulls
out cover the bag like this so it's not 100% waterproof but it works really good
but yeah depending on where you live in the world if you live in a rainy area
like Japan there's gonna be a lot of backpacks available that are waterproof
you may also want to get like a plastic bag to put your delicate stuff inside
your bag if it's not waterproof so I use this with smaller bags for example I use
ziplock bags and I put my like cell phone in here so it's always protected
even though my cell phone is kind of technically waterproof so Samsung Galaxy
but you'd ever want to test that too much if I'm bringing my camera with me
on a ride and I'm filming stuff like I did today I have an extra big ziplock
bag so it'll fit right in here I can protect all my electronics I always
always always have some sort of ziplock bag with me just to protect my delicate
stuff and I mean electronics by the way oh for the bike itself fenders are a
given you have enough water coming down on you you don't want any extra water
coming up on you so I actually don't have a fender myself but I really wanted
one on today's ride as I was getting just absolutely soaked riding through
those giant puddles another important thing is lights especially a backlight
because you don't want to get rear-ended by some car that can't see you so even
if it's daytime there's not much daylight because of the rain and you
want your light on the blinking motor some sort of movement on you don't just
want some static light you want some movement in that light that's been
proven to be just way way way safer if you're riding in the rain a long time
you might want to use some specific chain lubricant that's meant for wet
conditions and also just drying off your bike at the end of the ride just wiping
it down with a towel real quick saves you the hassle of having to clean your
bike later I try and do it right after my ride but
you all know I'm not the best with bike maintenance and keeping my bikes clean
but anyway that's what you should do don't it's not necessarily what I do but
it's what you should do so wrapping up there's still a few other things that I
wanted to mention and one of those is just how you're riding the bike so keep
in mind that when you're riding in the rain the conditions are completely
different than riding in dry conditions so you can't quite take a turn as fast
as you normally would I recommend dropping down your air
pressure so I normally ride around 110 120 psi in my road bike but if it's
raining I'll go down quite a bit and I usually go by feel but I would say it's
maybe around 80 or so and depending on what tires you have if you have wider
tires you might be able to go lower or if you're riding some sort of mountain
bike road tires or hybrid tires or even tubeless you might be able to go even
lower depending on your set and again going going back to those corners
there's a huge difference in your braking power as you're braking so if
you're using normal caliper road brakes those ones will definitely have this
really really big difference in power and especially if you're using like
carbon wheels and carbon rims like you're not gonna get any braking power
fortunately a lot of people are making the switch to disc brakes now so right
now I'm using my cross bike which has disc brakes so I had no problems braking
in the rain today but even then if you if you sort of try and break too quickly
you might slide speaking of sliding you have to be careful of what areas are
really kind of dangerous so on the course today there was some mud that got
onto the course which caused me to slide a little bit and so different types of
pavement are more slippery in the rain so for example lines on the road are
really really dangerous and Japan has a lot of big painted nib they paint all
over on their roads they'll have a whole section that's like all red all blue or
something and this type of pavement can be a little bit dangerous if you're
changing from one to the other one and you're not quite expecting that and also
depending on type like what type of bricks you are if there's some sort of
slippery bricks on the sidewalk Japan has a lot of these as well and if you're
just on those it's kind of like glass if you try turning on those you're just
gonna slip and slide and this has happened to me a couple of times here a
few more and then I'd like to admit but yeah just be careful there's different
types of concrete there's different types of bricks there's different types
of riding surfaces that you're on and every time you change from one to
another every time you hit some sort of bump
you're gonna be risking losing traction and standing up on the bike can be a
little bit dangerous as well so instead of standing up where you normally would
you might want to try and sit down and spin through that hill if you're
climbing or something like that and last but not least is reflective
gear if this just goes along with the lights you want to make yourself as
visible as possible and this is true in really any situation but especially more
so at night or in rainy conditions HM is that everything so yeah this is a pretty
big topic and I'm sure there's something I missed
if you have any other ideas or good suggestions for riding cycling in the
rain please leave it below in the comments for everyone to see and I hope
you guys enjoyed this video found it useful if you want to see more videos
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video topic in the future let us know in the comments down below as well and
that's it for real this time thanks again to everyone and we'll see
you in the next video