Need cold/rain cycling advice

Tri to get your hands on some gear designed for rain, at least gloves and booties as I find these parts to get very cold. (But I know it is $$)  You can always layer up and wear tights/leg warmers and a raining jacket on top to keep your core warm. I would definitely use socks (leaving in New England it seems kind of crazy not to do it!) and put on your shoes some duck tape to cover the top of it. This will help to keep your feet dry from the rain and insulate some of the cold, plus if you wear the booties you are pretty much all set! To keep your head dry some people use a showering cap on top of the helmet, I personally just wear a hat and the helmet.

jszat and I live in your area, and in this crap, you're not gonna overheat unless you really really overdo it.  If you don't have booties for over your bike shoes, get some TODAY. 

Otherwise, I've worn shell type pants and a shell type outer jacket.  Then, underneath, all dry-fit type stuff like jszat mentioned.  Make sure the gloves are nylon on the outside as well to keep your hands reasonably dry.  You won't overheat in these weather conditions.

You gain and lose a lot of heat from the top of your head (I've heard) so based on how it feels you can decide whether you need a hoodie or not.  I'd have one of those on hand for this type of weather as well.

And, yea, the no socks idea ain't gonna work for the expected weather here in the upper midwest this weekend.  Nice idea for summer rides though.

You did help me a lot last weekend with advice on dealing with the cold, it's just that now we have the added element of the wet.  Top of the head? - don't worry I've got my car washing rag all ready to go.

Thanks to everyone for the tips.  The funny thing is that i'm a big sissy when it comes to getting in the cold pool early in the morning but I'm looking forward to freezing my butt off on the bike.  Go figure.

Cold I can handle.  Wet I can handle.  The two together, on the bike, nope, noway, sorry.

You'll find me on my trainer Saturday morning for my ride.   

I could find you IF you'd tell me where you live!  (stalker alert!) And I'm still waiting to see how you answer the "would you let someone ride your tri bike?" thread.

<drooling, rubbing hands together>

Seriously, I'll be thinking of you going high speed on your trainer while I'm doing 9 mph out to Marengo and back.

It is supposed to rain here this weekend. A group of us BTers are planning on riding the Mooseman course...I'm planning on doing just over one loop which will be 42 miles. We pushed back from Sat. to Sunday to avoid the rain, but the rain is still coming...grr.

My coach offered another option...1.5 hours on trainer in am and another 1.5 in pm followed by a run. Crap riding in the rain sounds much more fun than 3 hours on the trainer. It willbe the 2.5 hour drive home after the 3.5 hours outside in the rain...that will be unpleasant.

I'm planning on wearing my cold weather gear as it will be both wet and cold...booties will be great...my windproof Pearl tights, somewhat waterproof Brooks jacket...but jeez I don't really want to be outside in the rain for 3.5 hours But my desire to do well at Mooseman this year is greater.

i find that as long as I don't have bare skin exposed and my fingers and toes are warm, I can tolerate wet down into the 50's as long as I am moving and generating heat.

You lose heat while riding due to either conduction,  convection or evaporative cooling.  Basicly your body is warming a thin layer of air at the surface of your skin.  If that layer of air is removed, then you reheat a new layer.... thus you lose heat and get cold.  When your skin gets wet, that water is colder then your skin temp.  It tries to reach equilibrium, so it starts absorbing heat.  It takes a lot of energy to increase the temp of water, so that is going to sap your body heat.  Water also evaporates, which is not a huge concern in really rainy conditions, because the realtive humidity is already really high, but if it starts to clear up and the humidity drops, water evaporating will drop your skin temp really fast.

So to keep warm you need to fight those processes directly.  The primary one to fight is conduction.  So you need to get the water off you skin ASAP.  A wicking layer will help out with this as it pulls moisture away from your skin where it can evaporate without making you cold.  Even saturated, a good wicking material will keep most of the water off your skin.  In the rain, I will ride in smart wool hiking socks.  Even when saturated, they keep as much water as possible from the surface of your feet.   

To battle convection you need a wind proof layer.  Like was mentioned, the best ones are breatheable membranes.  These work very well as long as the membrane does not have liquid water clinging to it.  If the membrane wets out, then vapor can't pass through it and it's basicly a big sheet of plastic.  So most quality membrane jackets have a layer of nylon on top that has been treated with a shedding agent.  You can use this same shedding agent on base wicking layers with good sucess to improve the water repelency of something without affecting the breathability.

Goretex is probably the best membrane material I have found (I actually prefer Mountain Hardwear's version, but alas they don't make cycling gear), but another great alternative is something called Tyvek.  It's the stuff the USPS makes priority mail envelopes out of and new construction uses for house wrap.  Frog-toggs makes jackets out of the stuff.  It's super thin and light.  So it doesn't trap much heat, but it repells a lot of water.

If you are ambitious you can buy this stuff by the roll at a contractor supply house and make your own jackets and leggings.  It costs about $120 for a 8' by 100' roll, so you'd probably want to either plan on making a ton and selling them or getting together with a bunch of people to split up the roll.

We're relegated to the spinning bikes today!!!!! No way am I riding outside. Too cold.

Although we did ride outside a couple of weeks ago when it was pretty cold... and wet....I wore a long sleeved jersey, and a waterproof shell jacket... knickers... (cycling pants that come to about the knees) and socks and shoes and toe warmers. Gloves also. I wore an ear band thing under my helmet.

We were soaked when it was over. And freezing. I think the name of the game is layers.  Dress in dri-fit layers.

Good Luck. I will be racing Dumpster at 0 mph.

Bah!  You wimp!   Just got back and it's lovely out.  (Whizz and I live in the same town, tho we've never met) Much warmer and drier than I expected.  43 degrees when I left the house and the roads were wet but no rain.  It was balmy.  Another 20 minutes and I think I'll have feeling in my feet! 

Thanks for the advice everyone, I've got more shopping to do!