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Comment by paulcole | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

>The only downside for me

Not to mention the main downside of getting cancer

A small downside of a few fun options [0]:

> 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.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorooctanoic_acid

[citation needed]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorooctanoic_acid#Health_...

Why do you think they are discontinuing it if it is so amazing in what it does?

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.

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.

[1] https://wwwn.cdc.gov/TSP/ToxFAQs/ToxFAQsDetails.aspx?faqid=1... [2] https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp200.pdf

My question for things like this is how do you get exposed? Does it absorb through the skin from a garment under normal conditions?

So just some suggestive evidence and confounders could exist.

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.

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?

Obligatory FortNine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtCdQfbLw7o

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.

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.

Did you work with POLARTEC Neoshell or the North Face Futurelight? There were some bike garments made of similar materials.

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!

Neoshell and Futurelight are 3L fabrics so are going to be more similar to eVent than shakedry.

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.

> 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.)

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