Last year on a wet Trans Cambrian bikepacking trip, thanks to Guy Kesteven's review of the 7Mesh Thunder Pants, my world was gently rocked by how a high-performance pair of waterproof trousers could be genuinely pleasant to leave on all day.
This year, my favorite ‘it doesn’t have to be this way’ discovery has been Gore Wear’s Endure Gore-Tex Shorts. I’d previously accepted that a wet gritty chamois just came with the territory in damp-weather mountain biking (ie all but the height of summer in the UK). And that you’d only take full waterproof pants if the weather was unspeakably filthy.
