Why I Built Wethra
Founder journey · 2026-07-13 · Wethra
I was cycling thirty miles a day to work, and it was never the morning that caught me out.
Thirty miles a day will teach you about weather
For a while I was cycling to work and back every day, around thirty miles in total, then more again at the weekend. That kind of distance does not leave much room for guessing. Get the kit wrong and you feel it for hours, not minutes.
Most days I got it right. Check the forecast, dress for it, get on with it. But often enough, I got it wrong, and it was almost never the morning that caught me out.
It was always the ride home
I would check the weather before I left in the morning, dress for that, and be perfectly fine on the way in. Then the ride home would be a completely different day: colder, windier, wetter, and I would be sitting there in kit I had chosen for a forecast that no longer applied.
A dry morning tells you nothing about a wet evening. I knew that from experience, but knowing it and actually checking for it twice a day, every day, are different things. Most of the time I just did not, and I paid for it somewhere on the way home.
I sat on the idea for a while
I thought about this problem for a long time before doing anything about it. It is a simple idea, which is probably why it took me a while to take it seriously: check the return journey too, not just the one you are about to start.
Eventually I put the thought into something real. That is what Wethra is. You tell it what you are doing and when you are travelling both ways, and it looks at both legs of the day rather than assuming the forecast when you leave the house is the only one that matters.
It is built for the day you actually have
Wethra is not just for cyclists, and it is not only about the commute; it covers walking, running, the school run, a day at the football, and a fair few other things people actually do outside. But the return-journey check exists because of thirty-mile days and one too many cold, wet rides home that I should have seen coming.
That is the job it does now for anyone using it: plan for your activity, your outbound trip and the one back, so the version of the weather that catches you out is the one you already knew to expect.
Check your own plan
Choose what you are doing and when you will be back. Wethra will check the forecast and give you a practical clothing recommendation.