Colin,
Great story. Instead of a sou'wester, I always wore a boy scout beret in the rain, because they were waterproof too. Although made of wool, you could turn them inside out and carry water in them! Be prepared!
Tony Taylor Manchester, NH
To: Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Sent: Tue, January 11, 2011 3:25:19 PM Subject: [CR] British Bike Capes
I remember fondly, using those bright yellow capes and even sou' westers during rides in England. Everyone had one rolled up behind the saddle ( with the rich CTC types having the oilskin variety as apposed to our cheaper plastic ones ) . I seem to recall that ours only cost around ten shillings at Curry's in the High
Street. One ride which sticks in my memory ( for some reason ) was on the A66 from Penrith to Barnard Castle,,,normally a pretty hard ride due to the fact that it transversed the Pennines ..this ride in particular was after riding the day before to the Lake District from Tees-side on the Saturday , then back home on the A66 on the Sunday ( an excursion that we did regularly for road-race training). The winds in the area are predominately Westerly , so we expected ( as it turned
out ) to be blown home....but..the day that I remember was out of this World,,the wind was stronger than anything in living memory, then a cry came out
of " Cape up ",,because the rain had begun . We set off again duly "caped up " but the wind was so powerful that the capes formed sails , stretching out in front of the riders,,so the speed went up from manageable to downright dangerous ( but at the time we thought it was pretty awesome ),,,as it was, the capes weren't really needed as the rain didn't even hit the ground,,,blowing horizontly to the pavement,,,but, HAPPY DAYS.
Colin Laing still sunbathing in CHANDLER Arizona..USA