For anyone not familiar with what makes Shakedry so revolutionary is its ability to be waterproof, highly breathable, and incredibly lightweight. Its weight and breathability make it incredible for active sports like cycling or running. These jackets weigh around 100-150g depending on features and size and can pack into the pocket of a cycling Jersey, all while being waterproof and preventing the athlete from overheating.
> waterproof, highly breathable, and incredibly lightweight
This is basically the way most outdoors products have been marketed since the previous century so I’m not sure how much we’re actually talking about here. What I was hoping to see in that article was something more quantitative — does “heavy and doesn't breathe as well” mean something is 20% heavier or 200%, etc.?
It's night and day different with other waterproof tech. Goretex publishes all the specs you want like hydrostatic head rating (how many mm of water pressure it can withstand), breathability, etc. Shakedry was better and lighter than anything else we've ever seen. The only con against it is that in high abrasion situations (like shoulder areas of jackets when wearing a heavy backpack) it can wear out. People in the outdoor and especially ultralight world loved shakedry.
Interesting. I have a fair amount of older ultralight stuff and while it definitely did the job I certainly felt that there was a sharp knuckle in the price curve where the extra cost wasn’t worth it.
Durability is a big factor now though since I’m primarily bike commuting where it’s about daily use & weight is less important.
>>> Durability is a big factor now though since I’m primarily bike commuting where it’s about daily use & weight is less important.
Nothing's more annoying than an expensive rain jacket or pants soaking through after a couple years of sporadic use. The crotch and knees of rain pants always wear out from the inside. Sunlight probably damages materials from the outside.
More and more I've learned to live without that gear, or to use it sparingly, by timing my trips and wearing fast-drying clothing. But sometimes it's just necessary.
Yeap – and the price differential usually means you can buy like 5 pairs of Costco/L.L. Bean-grade stuff which takes the sting out of losing or damaging something, or simply leaving spares at work in case you forget to check the weather.
Also, honesty compels me to note that if I wanted to shave weight off of my riding load out it’s a lot cheaper to start at the waistline.
> Also, honesty compels me to note that if I wanted to shave weight off of my riding load out it’s a lot cheaper to start at the waistline.
This is a total tangent but I recently added an electric mid-drive motor to my mountain bike and with the motor and the battery I was already adding a lot of weight, and now I have a rear rack and panniers and I use it to toot around the city and get groceries and stuff. Its just funny I am going the opposite direction, making my bike heavier while also making it less likely I will lose weight. Sure is fun though with 1500 watts at my disposal!
Oh, can I ever relate. I bought a cargo bike back in 2018 when construction on our subway line meant I was looking at a much longer commute to daycare with my son. I opted for an e-bike since it was going to be ~15 miles carrying all of the gear a kid needs.
It's been transformative since it basically removes most excuses for shopping, recreation, etc. — we put more miles on the e-bikes now than our car — and we often laugh at the way your mindset changes. I currently have a heavy duty chain lock which weighs more than my lightest road-bike weighed unloaded, have been known to dig into the panniers and find multiple changes of clothes and toys for the boy, etc. What's really nice is durability: they make incredibly tough tires these days as long as you don't mind them weighing twice as much.
I must say that the times I've been on a real road bike have definitely left me missing that feeling — it's basically the bike version of the jokes about someone selling their convertible and buying a minivan when they have kids — but what I really want is to rent a nice road bike on vacation since the safe & fun routes where I live really don't need any extra performance (I don't want to be the spandex bro slaloming around kids at 30+ MPH on the shared trails).
That sounds great! Yeah I’m fortunate I have a decent Fuji road bike too, and I’ve not taken it out since my recent move in to the city. But it would be nice to get some exercise and some of that sports car feeling! Absolutely love using the ebike for pleasure riding though and I agree it’s nicer to take the bike for groceries than the car!
Motorcycles are indeed super fun. Interesting to see the uptake in motorcycling from the low end of the power spectrum, vs the bikes that often have similar power outputs to an economy car.
At 1500W the human power component is ornamental really, and the vehicle becomes inappropriate for multiuse paths and bike lanes. Much closer to a moped (e.g. the 49cc Honda Ruckus), and probably faster!
I love any form of transport that isn’t a car! Love that the e-Moto or e-Moped or HighPower_eMTB segment is taking off, I’m just anticipating that we’re going to eventually see them become their own segment with different rules, regs, and facilities from bicycles.
> the vehicle becomes inappropriate for multiuse paths and bike lanes
I’m pretty much riding it in on the streets with the flow of traffic, where less power would have cars whizzing past me and would feel unsafe. If I do take it on a bike path, I slow down and don’t use the full power. It is easy to reduce the maximum power on the control interface and move at a relaxed pace. I’ve been cycling for 20 years, and I have no interest in behaving in a way which would be upsetting to other people. I know too that inappropriate behavior reflects poorly on the ebike community and could get them banned, so again I am thoughtful with my riding.
I recently learned that there's a special washing detergent and heat activated coating that you're supposed to treat Goretex with quite often. And sure enough when I did the water drops form beads again instead of soaking it. I'm curious to find out wether this will increase the lifetime significantly.
Sounds like the revolution comes from what happens when you sweat.
I read that most waterproof fabrics do a good job of keeping water out. It's what happens when you sweat that makes the difference.
If there's water on the outer layer .. the sweat staying inside (soaking you from within). This is where this fabric excels .. removing the external water layer; allowing sweat to exit.
In Florida, living between the coast and the everglades, rain is a daily occurrence. Having grown up there for 20 years, I feel that rain doesn't phase me at all.
I have questioned the averseness northerners have towards getting wet. Living in Maryland now, so many I've interacted with will just not go outside all day if there is rain. They've been raised by parents who've trained them to wait for the rain to stop, to postpone yardwork, to waste time and space fiddling with umbrellas.
Is it just a comfort thing, or is there a real advantage to waterproof/breathable clothing?
I get this — but in the Lakes district (England) or anyplace in Scotland, rain at 40F is still common yet folks are unperturbed and continue their daily outdoor activities.
It's amazing how effective a wool sweater and coat can be in those situations. They're very breathable and hydrophobic. I don't think they'd work for the pro cyclist but they're great for the layers-oriented worker.
A lot of this is because it rains so often if you didn’t get used to it you’d never do anything.
Same with golf, most golfers in UK and Ireland will have extensive rain gear, umbrellas etc to play golf otherwise they’d be limited to like 4 weeks a year.
When I lived there I had that gear too but when i lived in Texas I just didn’t play when it rained as I knew a sunny day was around the corner, year round.
Florida rains everyday in the Orlando area but only for an hour and most of th time it’s dry and sunny.
There is a world of difference if you can get into a warm place within minutes, or every now and then.
I also don’t care about rain when going shopping, or walking through the park, or for tourism. But I’ll be extra careful if I’m trekking or biking, as there’s just no option to quickly move to a resting place if I get too wet or too cold. It’s not like I’ll hop into a Starbuck in the middle of the mountain trail.
I haven't been to Florida for many years but this was my experience, when the rain drops it's like being in a shower. You keep wearing light summer clothing so you dry out quickly even if you get caught.
As others have pointed out, getting we when its 40F can quickly turn into hypothermia really fast. You can also get sweaty, then cold on a 40-50F day in a rain jacket if you're moving around a lot. Being cold and wet is no joke.
When I lived in south Florida, it would rarely rain 24/7. I now live in the PNW where it does rain 24/7 for about 9 months of the year. And it is cold.
My guess is that it's a suburban thing. People are almost always 'indoors', home or car. The standard for what's acceptable outdoor weather is high.
Visit a northern urban downtown. You will see plenty of people who pay little attention to the rain - not even rain jackets or umbrellas. They just go about their day.
Cold vs. warm rain is a huge difference. I lived in coastal California and road my bike to work all year, it could be 40F and raining, if you don't have a waterproof jacket you'll be freezing really fast. You'll be sweaty inside because they don't breathe perfectly but you won't freeze. In warm tropical rainy places you can just get wet from rain and not really worry.
This strikes me as odd. I live in Wisconsin, which is not particularly rainy, but also not a desert. I'm a cyclist, for recreation and utility. On rainy days, there are certainly fewer people out on the bike paths, but far from zero. Likewise during the winter. I see people walking past my house, and at the parks, when it's wet out.
There are also people who don't like to be outdoors under those conditions, or who think that it's brave of me to ride my bike to work at -20 F, but I remind them that people work outdoors all day in places like Alaska, and survive.
Naturally, thunderstorms get a bit more attention. Those can produce hail and tornadoes, or blow down trees, with little provocation.
I'd actually rather be out at -20F than +30F. Once things have frozen, there's no risk of being cold and wet at the same time, which is harder to dress for than just being cold.
That's the real issue in Maryland and similar latitudes. We often alternate between sub-freezing and above-freezing temperatures. Snow falls, melts, and then accumulates in large puddles. Bonus: on a particularly cold night, the puddle freezes on top, and then you fall through.
I'm not trying to win some kind of misery Olympics. But mid-temperatures can be tricky to handle in ways that aren't obvious.
i'm a northerner (chicagoland) and i loved rain, and never understood the point of umbrellas after having one as a little kid for going to school. i think there are lots of us, but rain at 35 fahrenheit drains heat faster than rain at 80 fahrenheit, so it's true we liked warm rain way way more.
If I tried to work in my yard while it’s raining it would cause too much damage that’s too much work to repair . I don’t even do yard work for a couple days after it rains. This is solely for practical reasons for me.
This is what makes ShakeDry so revolutionary. The nonsense brands have been saying about waterproof and breathable is actually real.
I’ve done 30 mile runs in the pouring rain w/ my ShakeDry jacket and come out “dry” at the end. The material never wets through. The only downside for me is that it does wear “warm” so I mostly wear it in under 45F degree weather — which coincides nicely with Portland’s rainiest weather.
My jacket was around $300 and more than worth every penny.
So your sweat is able to evaporate through the membrane leaving you dry? This is the biggest issue I’ve had with so called “breathable” membranes. (I assume you still sweat in < 45F weather because I still sweat even in freezing temperatures when running, depending on other conditions, etc)
I wear a Patagonia capilene baselayer and am often surprised by how dry everything (both myself and the baselayer) are beneath the ShakeDry jacket. There’s exceptions for sure: harder efforts, slightly warmer temperatures, times when the wrists off of my shirt “wick” water up into the body of the shirt/jacket, etc.
Overall though for cold (32-45F) and rainy weather like we get a lot in the PNW, it’s an amazing fabric.
> As a result of a class-action lawsuit and community settlement with DuPont, three epidemiologists conducted studies on the population surrounding a chemical plant that was exposed to PFOA at levels greater than in the general population. Studies have found correlation between high PFOA exposure and six health outcomes: kidney cancer, testicular cancer, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, hypercholesterolemia (high cholesterol), and pregnancy-induced hypertension.
Are you saying that's the case for exposure to it when wearing clothing with it on?
To be clear I'm not diminishing the experience of the people who live around the plant where it was produced if that's what you're referring to, where clearly it had a terrible effect, but my understanding of that was DuPont dumped thousands of tonnes of toxic waste in the ground near the plant that went into the groundwater, which is very different from wearing the product.
The CDC's ToxFAQs page on Perfluoroalkyls [1] is one starting point, refer to the full 993-page report [2] for all the gritty details. Here's a high-level summary of the evidence on cancer risks:
> The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC 2017) concluded that PFOA is possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B), and EPA (2016e, 2016f) concluded that there was suggestive evidence of the carcinogenic potential of PFOA and PFOS in humans. Increases in testicular and kidney cancer have been observed in highly exposed humans.
Less research on PFOS that aren't PFOA though, so there's room for dismissing the available evidence if you're so inclined.
I am a disinterested observer in all this but the issues seem to be in the concentrations involved in the production of the materials, not in the wearing of them.
The grandparent comment seems to imply that wearing these materials is a cancer risk but it really doesn't seem like that is the case. Am I wrong? I can't find anything that indicates it is an issue.
(I live in an old house with some asbestos-wrapped ducts, I think asbestos is bad and should not be produced anymore but I also think that the duct wrap in my house is not endangering my family.. this seems like that sort of a situation to me.)
The people wearing these things are probably not at any risk, but producing these chemicals means that they eventually end up in nature, which means in ground water, farmland, etc.
These flourinated organics don't break down in nature, they are known as 'forever chemicals'. They just stick around and get concentrated as they climb up the food chain. Like dioxins, the best way to get rid of them is burning them at sufficiently high temperatures, which apparently not all industrial incinerators reach.
I guess if enough of this stuff is pumped into the environment eventually some fungus or something will learn how to decompose it, but there will be a lot of cancer case before we get there.
As a runner myself, does being waterproof make that much of a difference? I've done pretty cold runs with various layers of under armour (or related) and while you don't stay dry, you do stay warm, and you will dry out pretty quickly if the rain stops.
Only thing I can think of would be very rainy and very windy weather but those are pretty rare in my area.
When it’s very wet, being truly waterproof and breathable makes a huge difference. It’s both much more comfortable and keeps me much warmer over the course of a 4-8 hour long run.
4-8 hour runs! I can't pretend to understand. I'd top out at ~3 hours at max marathon long run. I would love to do an ultra someday, but not sure if my knees are gonna let me. Take a few extra steps for me next time!
I remember US army like 10 years ago compared different fabrics and have found eVent was performing significantly better than Gore Tex. Does ShakeDry really better than alternative according to some realistic tests?
ShakeDry is much better than eVent in my experience running in very wet weather. eVent is fine for shoes (I’m pretty sure it’s what Altra uses in the weatherproof Lone Peaks) but for both weight and performance, ShakeDry is the better jacket material. I’ve spent way too much money on running gear over the years and ShakeDry laps the field in waterproof + breathable.
To be honest, I don’t particularly care what performs best according to research. I’m the one wearing it while running and ShakeDry is best for me.
I’ve had Neoshell shoes and they were fine as well. But never worn anything w/ that fabric or Futurelight. But from the branding that is very alpine/mountaineering focused, I’d guess that Futurelight is going to be too warm/heavy to be practical for running.
Sughoi (sp?) had Neoshell bike gear and new composites often focus on higher asp markets like mountaineering before they go into running, etc. These products are about breathable water barrier, not about warmth. They will come!
It seems like you’re saying that all monolayer products are better than all composite layers.
I would agree that optimal PTFE is a mini layer, bc it’s got such poor air perm.
However, the ‘working’ layer in futurelight and Neoshell has about 1/3 the material as PTFE and much higher void volume, making for higher flow rates. It’s worth checking out.
For those who don't know, FortNine is a YouTube channel from a Canadian motorcycle gear seller. Their producer has a physics background and makes excellent videos. Like xkcd, there's a relevant video for so many things even tangentially related to motorcycling.
> The only downside for me is that it does wear “warm” so I mostly wear it in under 45F degree weather
Yeah. For cycling, I wear short-sleeved summer jerseys under the Shakedry down into the 30s Fahrenheit. It gets pretty warm and sweaty in the high 40s but beats alternatives. (I'm up in Seattle.)
I don’t eat meat, I’ve never driven a car, I don’t fly in airplanes, I don’t have kids, and I live in a tiny apartment. How many of those are true for you?
I’ll allow myself the planet-killing indulgence of the jacket — which pales in comparison to those other steps I’ve taken.
Plus, I have a chronic illness that will already likely significantly shorten my life anyway. I’m not too worried about the health effects of a jacket that I wear 75 days a year.
If humanity up and disappeared tomorrow, most of the environmental damage from cars, overpopulation, etc. would sort itself out in a couple of hundred years.
PFAS, however, are extremely chemically stable and some of them will still be around in 1,000+ years time. They also bioaccumulate, and biomagnification occurs in predators (similar to mercury). It is a massive problem and the repercussions will be with us for a very long time.
If you don't care about your own health, fine. But don't try and take a moral stance about caring for the environment and then complain about PFAS products going away. Being slightly uncomfortable while exercising is a very small price to pay for not screwing up the planet.
Life on Earth is what's special, not us. We're just animals, nothing more.
Given that multiple species can evolve to fill the same niche, I would expect that as long as life of some kind survives on the planet another species would evolve to replace us.
That’s the problem. The product isn’t made for you. It’s made for society. And society does all the things you listed. From a society perspective, the product is bad, for the environment but also for cancer. We can’t unfortunately have a supply chain where we sell some products to people that don’t drive a car.
> We can’t unfortunately have a supply chain where we sell some products to people that don’t drive a car.
You’re dangerously close to getting it here.
Why don’t we work towards developing societies where driving a car for any truly non-essential reason is seen as one of the most selfish and anti-social things you can do? Yes, this would be a massive amount of work. Yes, it would cost a ton. Yes, people wouldn’t like it.
But then we could sell all products to people who drive cars as little as humanly possible. A huge improvement!
> I don’t eat meat, I’ve never driven a car, I don’t fly in airplanes, I don’t have kids, and I live in a tiny apartment. How many of those are true for you?
as an earth-noid I appreciate the service you're doing for us here, we need more like you; but weaponizing those points makes the endeavor feel like a big exercise in virtue signaling -- I very-much hope you chose to live your life that way for a greater reason than one-upping someone on the internet.
| Why it works for road cycling but not much else.
My guess is that road cyclists have a tendency to buy new gear on a shockingly frequent basis, so if your jacket only lasts a year it's not really a problem.
Road cyclists don't wear backpack and don't touch rocks or branches like most other outdoor activities.
Backpack + body movement will rub and wear out the naked goretex membrane quickly.
And of course, rocks and branches will cut it.
Weird, I'm a keen cyclist and very into outdoor gear, and I've never heard of it. There are now many waterproof fabrics though, it's very hard to tell one strong claim from another.
Depends what distances are You up to and in what weather. If You bike in warm weather and can simply dry off at home / in a hotel after a race, than no big deal. The cycling jersey might do just fine with some basic windbreaker against the chill.
Shakedy is however a gamechanger for anyone doing ultra distance and self supported racing. The ability to bike through a rainy night without worrying about Your upper body being wet is nothing short of amazing. And I say that as a proud owner of a not-too-old Goretex Pro mountain jacket and some older membrane jackets before that.
The tradeoff here is that it's very prone to abrasion. You can't currently use this technology for purposes like hiking because backpack straps, scraping against rocks etc would put small holes in the external membrane. Perfect for cycling though!
