The AGU Annex!!!!!!!!!

My very first regenpak that I bought myself was a darkish yellow suit. My previous suit, an Agu "clone" that my mom bought "cheapcheap" started to flake: the white rubber coating on the inside of the nylon shell came off. This gave an ugly dandruff-like effect. Duh! The Agu suit, while about twice as expensive (in 1980 about 90 Dutch guilders) is still pretty much OK. Only now, 20 years later, the rubber starts to come off. This is the suit that was used in the gaggage session.

Company history
The Agu company name stands for "Alkmaarse Groothandels Unie", a combination of wholesale companies. It was founded in 1969. So far I couldn't unearth any other corporate history. At this moment, the company positions itself rather aggressively on the Dutch bicycle clothing and accessories market. Not only rainwear (now only available in fabrics that suck, like breathable stuff that doesn't do the job & gets you wet) but also racing gear and (puke-da-puke) leisure bikewear. This name sucks so bad that I carefully shop for the real stuff (like Descente, Castelli, Gonso) even though the Agu stuff comes from (I think) the same factories...

Suit History
In 1979 or so the Dutch Department of Transport (Ministerie van Verkeer en Wat Er Staat) decided to promote bicycling and organized a contest for rainwear, as it rains for a full 6 % of the time. The winner was Agu, and they proudly printed this on the boxes with the suits. Small wonder they won: until then, the only garb available was the heavy yellow PVC type raingear. Now, a much lighter material (rubber coated Nylon) was available. Riding a bike in the rain suddenly was much easier, as the PVC stuff just isn't made for supple movement. Also, some ventilation was provided on the back of the suit and under the arms. Not that it helped much, but it still was better than with the unyielding PVC gear. Very quickly clones became available, invariably made of inferior material (flaking rubber!). A notorious example is the brand Calypso. I have several of those suits, in nice shiny dark blue Nylon, and yes, all the rubber coatings flake! Right now PVC coated Nylon is widely used for waterproof clothing, again with large differences in quality. Now it is the seams that fail, or rather the taping on the seams, so you get wet again... Breathable gear from Agu works fine, if you don't move and if it's not older that ½ year, after that the breathable material and seams detoriorate and you get wet. Also, you should NOT have long legs. For some reason those bozos at Agu decided to market the breathable garb towards golfing (?????????????) and hence the pants are about 5" too short, so even with combat boots on my jeans (or BDU pants, for that matter) get wet. Not again.....

Well, enough rants for now. Below are some scans made from the box the suit came in. Don't they look pretty?

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