G.R.R.
Cruzbike rain configuration
Trust the British to make really nice raingear. The Carradice Pro-Route rain cape is heavy-duty, highly visible, well constructed, and ideal for standard diamond-frame bikes. For recumbents it has one obnoxious flaw: the front zipper has no sewn-in web/backing (like around the tongues of zippered rain boots), and since it's a local minimum, rain collects in the zipper and happily trickles on through. Still working on that...
In other respects it's great, though. It's velcro'd to the Streamer fairing (just like Peder Torgersen's, which was the inspiration for mine) and allows plenty of maneuverability, including access to the front water bottle. Shifting blind and being unable to see the speedometer are only minor nuisances.
Update 21 Nov 2010: Friday night's 12-mile ride in 46F temps with even colder water dribbling down chest and, shall we say, subarctic regions, served only to validate the utter retardedness of a topside zipper. However, the back is also sufficiently long to reach the fairing, so one 180-degree rotation later (plus another strip of sticky velcro), it looks like we have a solution. More cold rain is predicted for the next couple of days, so we'll find out shortly...
Cruzbike rain configuration
Trust the British to make really nice raingear. The Carradice Pro-Route rain cape is heavy-duty, highly visible, well constructed, and ideal for standard diamond-frame bikes. For recumbents it has one obnoxious flaw: the front zipper has no sewn-in web/backing (like around the tongues of zippered rain boots), and since it's a local minimum, rain collects in the zipper and happily trickles on through. Still working on that...
In other respects it's great, though. It's velcro'd to the Streamer fairing (just like Peder Torgersen's, which was the inspiration for mine) and allows plenty of maneuverability, including access to the front water bottle. Shifting blind and being unable to see the speedometer are only minor nuisances.
Update 21 Nov 2010: Friday night's 12-mile ride in 46F temps with even colder water dribbling down chest and, shall we say, subarctic regions, served only to validate the utter retardedness of a topside zipper. However, the back is also sufficiently long to reach the fairing, so one 180-degree rotation later (plus another strip of sticky velcro), it looks like we have a solution. More cold rain is predicted for the next couple of days, so we'll find out shortly...