Every monsoon season, the most asked question among riders is –
How to stay as dry as possible when riding a motorcycle in rain
If you want to travel from point A to point B and always stay completely dry, you should buy a car or stay home.
If you ride a bike in the pouring rain for long enough or hard enough, you will eventually get wet….whatever expensive raingear you wear.
Water runs off your helmet and down your neck. It will be thrown up from the road and up your jacket. It will hit your gloves and enter the sleeve. Or rise up your boot to your leg. It will find its way through zips and pockets.
If the pressure of water is strong enough, and the duration of the ride is long enough, there is no garment out there that can guarantee to keep you totally dry.
The most common claim is that a material is backed by a membrane, like Gore-Tex, that is supposed to be 100% waterproof. From this, the manufacturers will then sometimes imply or suggest that their jackets or trousers are completely waterproof.
The reality is that they are not, for all the reasons already outlined.
And anyway, the standard test that is conducted to check waterproof properties go out for a toss when rain hits a motorcycle garment at a speed of 100kph!
And even the best waterproof membrane is meaningless if the seams of a jacket are not taped with waterproof tape, or if the pockets are not also waterproof. And then there are the zips, the air vents, the collar, sleeves and so on.
So where do we end up?
Well, as we have suggested, there’s no such thing as a jacket, a pant, a glove or a boot that can keep you 100% dry for 100% of the time.
