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Review of Race Face Quantum jacket by Bike Magazine
Over the past month southwestern British Columbia has been besieged by near constant rainfall. It’s been so consistent that, on Sunday, for the first time in 30 days, there was no recorded precipitation at the ‘official’ monitoring site. Of course, I live closer to the mountains and we experienced no such lull in the action — it’s been raining non stop for a long time. In fact, the weather has been so bad that it’s not a great idea to get on the bike right now — our local trails, well suited to handle ‘regular’ amounts of rain, are completely saturated and turning into muddy ruts whenever people ride them.
Race Face is headquartered in my part of the world and the company has consistently released quality cycling clothing. Much of their gear is targeted at the North Shore rider, so you won’t find too many tight-fitting cycling jerseys in the apparel lineup. That doesn’t mean a lot of the company’s gear won’t work well for most of you — it just means you won’t be able to track down (for now) the stereotypical xc outfit.
Bike Magazine has posted up a review of the Race Face Quantum jacket that does a good job of highlighting the strengths of the jacket, as well as taking note of its limitations. There’s also a solid description of the technical features of the Quantum jacket for those of you who demand to know the minutiae of the gear that you’re wearing.
What happens if your local shop doesn’t stock Race Face and doesn’t show a whole lot of interest in bringing the stuff in? Well, there are a couple of quality alternatives out there that can do a decent job of deflecting water. Cannondale-owned Sugoi is headquartered in the same part of the world as Race Face and is widely available — and most of the company’s gear is very good. If you live in Canada near a major urban centre, Mountain Equipment Coop always has a decent selection of rain gear for cyclists, although I’d recommend checking the stuff out in person (rather than ordering sight-unseen from the Internet).
Any others out there? Feel free to add your favourite type of rain gear to this entry using the comment box below.
1. Posted by Ashwin | 1:17 pm, 17 January 2006
Soft shell fabrics are really cool. I have been using a jacket with PowerShield made by foxwear.net. 98% windproof and some water repellency. Windproof fabrics are great but beware that some breathe better than others.
The price on that jacket really is very good given that it is a softshell fabric.