What Became of the Parachute Jacket

or

The Path to a 4oz. Bicycle Jacket

The Parachute Jacket was intended to function as a drag brake on our tandem. Conventional drum drag brakes on tandems are heavy and require maintenance. I envisioned a jacket with dormer sleeves catching the wind on a descent, thereby creating enough drag to prevent our descent exceeding 35 mph.

Riding in the aero position on our tandem, my wife Kirsten Lisbeth Jensen and I can quickly accelerate to 40 mph and will continue to accelerate to speeds exceeding 50 mph even if we sit upright and spread out our legs and arms.

The high speed is dangerous when descending through switchbacks.  I use the tandem’s rim brakes to slow down, which they do until the brake pads wear out. In addition, there is the worry that using the rim brakes to slow down will result in them being too hot to complete an emergency stop if the switchback is blocked by a fallen tree limb or a disabled vehicle.

I became aware of the safety issue when we, as basically flatlanders, undertook the 4-Day tour part of the Boston-Montreal-Boston tour in August 2004. On the way into Middlebury, Vermont, we wore out a brake pad and damaged a wheel in descending the Middlebury Gap in the Green Mountains.

Therefore, on the way home, concern for our safety resulted in us walking in the cold rain more than 500 yards of the descent of the Middlebury Gap. We had the brute strength to climb Middlebury Gap, but I lacked the knowledge and experience to descend safely through its switchbacks. High speed technical descents require not only the knowledge, but also the experience which results in the confidence to execute the descent properly. My knowledge was barely satisfactory and my experience was non-existent.

Having a rear locknut distance of 130mm on our tandem meant that neither a disc nor a drum brake could be used. I came up with the idea of parachutes in the form of jackets for captain and stoker. Much to my surprise when I presented this idea to the Tandem Hobbs chatboard, I learned that an actual parachute tied to the stoker had been successfully used as a tandem drag brake. Well, if a parachute works, why not parachute jackets? The parachute jackets would have the advantage that its deployment was reversible while riding along at any speed.

Kirsten sewed the jackets from scratch making her up own pattern. The jacket’s fabric was neon pink and neon blue ripstop nylon similar to that in sport parachutes. The jackets had large dormer sleeves functioning as airfoils and held down by fishing leads passing from one sleeve under the stem to the other sleeve.

During Thanksgiving 2004, we tested the jacket while in Tallahassee on a steep hill sheltered by trees on both sides. The jacket kept the bike’s speed in the mid-30’s.

We brought the parachute jackets with us to the Sebring 2005 Tandem Rally, but did not use them as the hills in Sebring are just too small.

The true test came in Park City, Utah, over Memorial Day weekend 2005. Between ParkCity and MirrorLake there are two long climbs with two corresponding long, straight, high speed descents. On the first descent, we went fairly fast before we deployed the parachute jackets as drag brakes. The tandem slowed down, but the front wheel came off the ground intermittently. I used the rim brakes to bring the bike under control. On the next descent, we deployed the parachute jackets as drag brakes from the top of the hill, and they worked for a while, but the hill was long and eventually the front wheel started to lose continuous contact with the earth. Again, I used with the rim brakes to slow down, and never again were the parachute jackets usecd as drag brakes.

However, we could not see wasting such fine fabric which had side benefits of warmth, durability and visibility at a very low weight penalty. The parachute jacket weighed about 4 ounces.

Kirsten converted them to normal bike jackets. Biking jackets and vests are unusual in that they are used in the bent over position. Therefore they must be longer in the back and wider across the shoulders.

Kirsten’s remodeling was a total success:  We had a jacket weighing 4 ounces and a vest weighing 2 ounces. Each could be stuffed into a tiny Ziploc snack bag and both bags fit in a bike jersey’s pocket or a large water bottle whose top has been cut off, or better yet stuffed in the soft bag that sunglasses come in and hung off the handlebars.

Outside of South Florida, I always ride with the vest as it is so small it fits in my spare tire carrier. It kept me warm in May while descending in light drizzle in Arches National Park in Utah.

The jackets themselves were wonderful to have while on our August 2005 vacation in Kirsten’s homeland Denmark.  The Danish weather on any summer day can change from 50 to 75 and back to 50, while the sun and the rain come and go.

The jackets made their next appearance at the Sebring Tandem Rally in January 2006. The Saturday ride started with temperatures in the high 40’s despite it being a bright sunny day. Less then 2 hours into the ride the temperature was up at least 20 degrees and the time came to stop and take off the warm clothing. Ours packed away neatly in a water bottle holder.  That night at the Kenilworth banquet, I gave an impromptu speech about our jackets. The audience of rally participants laughed heartily about the genesis of the jackets as drag chutes, and whether or not I could stuff the jacket and vest back into their respective Ziploc snack bags.

However I did receive quite a bit of interest from cyclists who wanted to buy one or more of these garments.

I also received very favorable feedback at the Snowbird Century Bicycle Ride. Despite being held in Miami, Florida in March 2006, the temperature at the start was 50 degrees. We wore our jackets for about an hour and a half while biking to the first rest stop, where we took off the jackets, and packed them in old sunglass cases so that they hung on the speedometers. The jacket and its case weighed less than three ounces. Several of the 650 bikers at the ride asked where to get the jackets, and one bike shop wants to order a supply next fall.

With such interest in the jackets, I decided to hire a cut and sew contractor in the USA called Tama Mfg and Tama Manufacturing. I met with its president Mark Fogelman in Miami Beach, Florida, April 2006. He is quite the showman, well able to sell his company's services as superior when in fact they are awful. His company produced for me patterns and samples that were disgraceful, a bad joke because they were so far below satisfactory:  Tama Mfg personnel even failed to read the corrective instructions I sent, or if they read them, they chose to ignore them.
The invoices I received after I fired Tama Mfg claimed $600 of production development, but the only reasonable conclusion looking at what Tama Mfg sent me is that there was NO production development done by Tama at all.
The fit of the samples was wrong, the sewing sloppy and the patterns far from what could be used for professional manufacture of a cycling jacket or vest. It even got the pouch wrong, as it could not copy the design of an eyeglass pouch without creating a one-inch slit down the side for the draw string.
Is it any wonder that most all clothing being sold by Macy's is made overseas!