Nano Flex: a history of water repellency

As with so many of our products, it began with a problem, or at least the attempt to identify a solution to one. In this case, the questions revolved around how to dress in unpredictable weather, and how to avoid the unpleasantness of that clammy, wet feeling of cycling in the rain. Yes, we now have the option to escape to a virtual reality tucked dryly away in our caves of pain, but what do you do if, you know, you want to go ride your bike outside? When it might rain or – wait for it – it’s already raining?

Which brings us back to the original question, put bluntly: how can we make riding in the cold and rain not suck?

Let’s rewind the tape ten years, to a particularly nasty November in 2009, when we sat down with a few of the riders on the Cervélo Test Team. Guys who were riding through winters in Belgium, the high mountains of Spain, in Norway; in other words, guys who spent considerable amounts of time in cold and wet conditions. Pros in general, and these guys in particular, were the perfect cycling product testing Guinea pigs!

After a couple years of engineering and testing, we’d developed a 5-phase nanotechnology treatment where we applied an outer coating of tiny, silicone fiber nanofilaments to a brushed fleece Thermoflex. The result? A fabric which offered a higher level of water protection without sacrificing breathability or stretch. If it sounds like a relatively complicated process, it was, and it was groundbreaking at the time. Watching water hit and immediately run off the fabric actually made us look forward to riding in the rain.

Since the first days of Nano Flex, we’ve never stopped working on improving the fabrics used for our wet weather cycling clothing. Though we’re not quite there on our goal of bringing full waterproofness to a non-membrane fabric, and after numerous small improvements over the past 10 years, we’ve made the first major updates, which can now be seen in the 3 types of Nano Flex technology we offer:

Our Nano Flex 3G fabric features our proprietary 3^rd generation of nanotechnology water-repellent finish and is our best all-around fabric for winter tights. It is warm, luxuriously soft, highly breathable, and offers full freedom of motion without reducing protection from the elements. While other companies are using simple chemical water-repellent finishes, we create a nanotechnology mechanical repellency to enhance a chemical DWR finish. The result is that you to stay drier and more comfortable. Nano Flex 3G can be found on our men’s and women’s Tutto Nano Bibtights (and Bib Knickers and Bibshorts), and on our warmers.

Nano Flex Xtra Dry fabric utilizes a tighter knit, double-layer construction, and we’ve improved the water repellency treatment to offer even more protection. This is a significant improvement in making your foul-weather riding much more comfortable and allows us to offer no-compromise pieces for all your cool-weather riding. Nano Flex Xtra Dry can be found on our men’s and women’s Nano Flex Pro 2 Bibtights, our Sorpasso 2 Wind Bibtight (back panel and lower leg), the Meno + Wind Bibtight (back of legs), Omloop Pro 2 Bibshorts, Nelmezzo RoS Jersey, and the back of our Alpha RoS Light Jacket and Trasparente Jersey.

Nano Flex Light Woven is a stretch woven fabric with Nano Flex water repellent finish, has better water repellency, lower air permeability, and is more packable than its predecessor. Nano Flex Light Woven can be found on both our men’s and women’s Perfetto ROS Light Jacket and Perfetto ROS vest.

So the next time you find yourself checking the weather on your phone or perhaps wishfully thinking as you gaze out the window to wintery conditions, put on your Nano Flex, head out the door, and show the weather who is boss.