It’s still windy, wet, and chilly out there - a thermal jacket may be too much but it’s definitely still jacket weather. Sugoi’s new Helium Jacket is just about perfect for spring outings. Weighing in at a minuscule 3 ounces, you’ll hardly know you have it on.

The Helium totally blocks those cold breezes and keeps light rain out, thanks to water resistant fabric and doubled seams. There are small perforations under the arms to help keep you ventilated as you warm up and a longer hem on the back to protect you from spray if you’re cycling. The sleeves are a generous length, but have an elastic band to keep them from falling too low on shorter arms. Reflective strips on the zipper and across the back will make you visible if the run or ride has you out in low-light situations.

Best feature? A little zippered pocket on the right side for gels, MP3 players, keys, whatever you need to reach in a hurry. The Helium is a rose color called “Flamingo” - very fun!

Sugoi Women’s Helium Jacket: $85 msrp. Available at your local bike shop or through Team Estrogen online.

We know disposable plastic water bottles are clogging our landfills, costing lots of oil, and might be putting some pretty nasty chemicals into the water we’re drinking. That’s got us switching to refillable bottles and they’re great! But, if you’re not a fan of aluminum drinking bottles, and you worry about what leaches into your water from a conventional plastic bottle, check out this new offering from Camelbak. They’ve changed the plastic formula on their very popular “Better Bottle” to a material that’s totally free of BPA and Phthalates. It’s still the familiar hard clear plastic bottle in lots of cheery colors but without the nasty stuff.

Camelbak Better Bottle: with classic cap or bite valve (available May 2008). msrp $8, www.camelbak.com

Wind and cold are not nice to our skin. No problem if you’re the Marlboro man. But I’d like to look good even if I’ve been outside having fun year round. It’s been a hard winter here in the Chicago area, probably the snowiest and coldest since I moved here 16 years ago. But I’ve tried to keep riding my bike to work as much as possible and I knew I needed some protection that wasn’t petroleum-based. I’m all for keeping bees gainfully employed, so I picked up a tin of Burt’s Bees Miracle Salve. It’s a blend of pumpkin seed oil, olive oil, wheat germ oil, bee pollen, and bee’s wax.

It’s really nice for face and hair on cold days, but I’d recommend removing it from your face once you’re inside if you tend to break out. It really came to my rescue, though, on my hands. They tend to split and crack at the finger tips in cold weather, no matter how diligently I apply hand lotions. Slathering some of this Miracle Salve on under a coat of regular lotion really healed up cracked skin and kept it healthy, despite repeated hand-freezing on my bike or shoveling the many inches of snow we’ve gotten. It’s great stuff!

Burt’s Bees Miracle Salve 2 oz. tin, $7.00 msrp. Available online at www.burtsbees.com and many health food and natural product stores. I found my tin at Target.

This is Marin’s new spin on an old favorite, their Juniper Trail mountain bike. Billed as a women’s specific model, it felt perfectly sized, right out of the box. I’ve gotten to be a huge fan of women’s bike designs (for the most part). It’s a real boon to female riders, especially very small, light people. You gals don’t need an overdesigned frame meant for a 250 lb. crusher, barreling down boulder-strewn tracks. Humans are adaptable creatures, and we get used to the feel of a bike that’s maybe a smidge too long in the reach from seat to bars or brings our knees a little higher than we like, but when you get on a bike that has those things adjusted for your proportions, it just clicks, snaps, whatever aphorism you want to use to describe that delicious “ahh, it’s right” feeling that happens between rider and bike that actually fits. Perhaps you’ve never experienced that? Keep trying bikes until you do — it’s so worth it. Okay, enough of beating the dead horse of bike fit….Marin seems to get this right for their women’s bikes every year and the Juniper Trail is another sterling example.

So, aside from an awesome fit, what’s so special about the JT? It’s light and eager to move up and down twisty single track, over gnarled roots and logs, around the immovable object, and up the inclines without any awkward hesitations. Chalk that up to Marin’s Hydro-Light frame design - strong and light because it’s hydroformed and the fact that it’s a hardtail with no rear shock weighing it down. For smooth cross country trails and shorter technical rides, the Juniper Trail was amazingly fun to ride.

If you’re new to mountain biking and a full suspension bike seems a little overwhelming or your terrain doesn’t include a lot of gigantic drops, the Juniper Trail is a great bike to start with. For under 1K you get great Shimano hydraulic disc brakes, Shimano Deore/LX shifting, narrower handlebars and smaller grips, a women’s specific saddle, and a Marzocchi front suspension fork, tuned to a woman’s lighter weight, with a lockout option. And it’s tangerine — every time I went out for a ride, that color made me smile!

Marin Juniper Trail: msrp $990 www.marinbikes.com