The Best Flood Insurance You Can Bike In
The scene is all too common: You’re out on a long ride on a warm, bluebird day, when out of nowhere, a fierce thunderstorm materializes. Cold rain drops the air temperature 20 degrees or more in minutes, and your better-prepared ride partners drop you—shivering, miserable, and wishing you’d brought a weatherproof layer—on a climb.
It’s times like this that call for an insurance jacket, which we’d define as a piece light and small enough to pack down in minimal space, so you can take it on a ride even if you might not need it, but which actually provides decent protection from the elements when you do. That product has been a unicorn—often spoken about, never sighted—until now.
Gore Bike Wear’s new Rescue WS AS jacket is thin and light, weighing just 123 grams in a size large, and packs down to the size of a baseball, much like standard ultralight wind shells. Unlike those gossamer garments, however, it’s made of Gore’s Windstopper Active Shell fabric, with fully taped seams. This means you get the best of both worlds: the weightlessness and packability of a wind shell, with the protection of a waterproof shell.
The company’s “waterproof” standards are pretty admirable: A garment earning the term has to resist water at high pressure for long periods of time, so it doesn’t use that term for the Rescue WS AS. If you’re heading out for a ride in the rain, it’s not a replacement for a real Gore-Tex-equipped rain jacket. But it will protect you in brief-but-intense downpours, the kind that pop up regularly during warm months in places like Colorado’s mountains.
To be sure, there are compromises. To meet weight goals, the jacket uses only a half zip. Pockets are minimal, and the hood is close-fitting, so it’s best worn under a helmet. And there’s a premium price for provisions this packable: $250.
But when you’ve got limited space, size and weight matter far more than cost. What the Rescue WS AS offers is the ability not to have to choose between essentials: You can bring the jacket and still have room in your jersey pocket or small hydration pack for snacks, a phone, and more.
And given how thunderstorms seem to work, the fact that you did bring it might mean you’ll never actually need it.
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