Rain, rain, go away….

I know that most of you are probably buried under 500 feet of snow and ice right now and, therefore, don’t feel all that badly for us that it’s raining here.

But raining it is, and has been, and will be. Honestly, it’s not that bad here on the Peninsula. It could be worse — SoCal is being literally buried alive under landslides — but I’m still sick of being perpetually soggy.

The last time I rode to work in the rain (last week), I discovered exactly where on my jacket I’d skimped with the ScotchGuard. In fact, I learned that ScotchGuard really doesn’t work all that well for shielding me against torrential downpours.

So, I turned to the World Wide Interweb and ordered a bunch of Nikwax products. They arrived last night, and I spent an enjoyable evening with chemicals, my Kilimanjaro jacket, and my washing machine.

waterproofing 101
1) Remove the liner and armor from the jacket.
2) Clean the jacket using Nikwax Tech Wash. The care label on the Kilimanjaro says to hand wash, but I am a scofflaw and put it in the washing machine.
3) Run the machine through another cycle, this time with Nikwax TX-Direct Wash-In. Five minutes into the cycle, stop the machine and let the jacket soak for 15 minutes, then restart the cycle and let it finish.
4) Let the jacket air dry, then reinsert the armor and liner.

I still need to get some Nikwax TX-Direct Spray-On for touch-ups.

For leather:
1) Clean the leather with a rag and warm water.
2) Apply Nikwax Aqueous Wax (the webpage shows the black wax, but unless 100% of your leathers are black, go with the neutral color).

I’ll stick this up on the gear page at bluepoof.com, too.

Naturally, it didn’t pour during my commute in this morning, so I can’t yet comment on how well the Wash-In waterproofing worked. It worked well for drizzle…. 😉 Luckily (?), it’s supposed to rain all day, so hopefully I can give an update after my evening commute.

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