I just got back from the Race through Poland where I frequently put into practice tip # 11 in Comova’s “25 for ‘25 Adventure Cycling Tips” series: Stay dry to stay warm.
The Race through Poland caught my eye back in December for two reasons:
- The race format
- I had never been to Poland even though it’s where my father’s grandparents immigrated from
Described as a “one-stage, self-supported, long-distance bike race,” the Race through Poland is comprised of six required parcours (or routes) ranging from 30-75 miles and with 6,000 to 10,000’ of elevation gain each. Spread around the Bohemian Massif (Poland, Czech Republic, Germany and Austria), riders are permitted to follow any route they choose to connect the required parcours.
If you’re a regular reader of this newsletter, you know how much I love route planning. This race format certainly allowed me to go deep in terms of researching and building a route.
In the end, I was pleased with my route planning. What I didn’t expect was how cold and wet much of the race would be. Given that I was constantly making decisions to try to manage my comfort on the bike, I thought I would share some tips related to riding in cold and wet conditions, especially on multi-day adventures when you might be in remote places without the option to bail out to safety.
Adventure Cycling Tip Reminders
First off, riding in wet conditions (especially off road), is rough on your gear. So if you know your adventure is going to get wet, definitely heed Tip #7: “Inspect your equipment.” For that matter, tips 8-10 (experiment with what works for YOU, comfort first, and dial it in) are also super relevant for potentially wet and cold adventures.
Material choices, layering comfort and tolerance for riding wet and/or cold are all extremely personal. That’s why I advocate for riding in the rain as part of your regular cycling routine. When you’re close to the safety of home you can experiment with what works for you without the risk of being stuck for countless hours in a wet and cold state.
Adventure Cycling Tip #11: Stay Dry to Stay Warm
“Stay dry to stay warm” sounds pretty straight forward. But it actually requires a lot of careful planning and on-the-fly decision making. That’s primarily because if it rains long enough and hard enough, you will eventually get wet. The first priority is to stay dry since staying warm when you’re dry is much easier than staying warm when you’re wet.
Sure, good gear continues to keep you warm even when you’re wet. But there’s a catch. When you stop pedaling, like on a descent, you stop generating heat. Once this happens, no matter what you’re wearing it’s only a matter of time before you get cold.
So the goal is to stay dry as long as possible. And, once you’re wet, to get dry as soon as possible. How do you do this?
If there’s a possibility of rain and low temperatures, you should always carry an extra base layer, spare gloves, a spare cap or buff, and possibly an insulated jacket. These are your lifelines so they MUST stay dry. Keep them all in a dry bag inside of a frame bag or other bag.
It also means breaking them out only when you’re relatively certain that the rain has ended. If you use your lifeline too soon and it gets wet, you’re basically out of options. In this case, your best strategy is to keep moving to generate heat and hope the rain eventually stops so you can begin drying things out.
Here’s how I employed the above strategy on the sixth and last day of the Race through Poland:
It had been raining all day when I stumbled on a shelter on the day’s second 8-mile climb. I was wet, and even though I was generating heat as I climbed, the temperature was dropping and I was getting cold. I had about 87 miles to go to the finish and I knew that would entail riding into the coldness of a dark night.
So I had to decide whether it was time to break out my lifelines–a dry merino shirt and my insulated jacket. Given that I momentarily had shelter from the rain, I decided to put the dry gear on and get inside my bivy to warm up. This allowed me to slow down, which is important in making good decisions.
As I sat there hoping for the rain to stop, I thought of the “three agreements” that I wrote about here as precursors to these adventure cycling tips:
- It’s not a race
- Slow down
- There’s always a solution
Of course, in this case, it was a race! But as a race with no prizes and nothing really at stake, it simply wasn’t worth risking health and safety. So I quickly moved to agreement number two.
Slowing down allowed me to find the solution. Knowing that before long I would be descending, I decided to carry on in the dry merino shirt but keep my insulated jacket in reserve for later in the night. I put my damp rain jacket on over the base layer knowing that it would dry out quickly on the descent (as long as the rain did not resume).
I also put my rain pants on anticipating that there would be puddles on the dirt part of the descent and lots of spray off the wet road on the paved part of the descent. I knew my feet would get wet again on the descent, so I put aside my last pair of dry socks (and a backup pair of insoles I happened to be carrying) to put on later when the rain was over.
The plan worked beautifully. I descended in relative comfort.
Then as the sun was setting I hit the first of the final two climbs of the day. They weren’t terribly steep, but at 4 miles long each I knew I would get damp again from the sweat the effort would require. At the top of the first I broke out my still-dry insulated jacket. It has a 2-way zipper so I was able to unzip from the bottom up to about my sternum which allowed enough venting to begin drying things out underneath the jacket.
As the second 4-mile climb approached I removed the insulated jacket. At first I was freezing, but as the climb ramped up I was once again generating plenty of heat to stay warm. This time, I put the insulated jacket back on just before the summit so I would trap some of the heat in the jack before descending.
These might seem like insignificant little details. But the point is that it is essential to stay on top of moisture management when you’re in conditions where temperatures can drop and you’re on all-day adventures where you have to be self-reliant.
That means giving yourself options by carrying gear appropriate for the conditions, and then keeping options available by utilizing your resources intelligently.
