Stylish and Water Resistant

WHAT: RaceFace Quantum Jacket HOW MUCH: $100 WHERE: www.raceface.com

In recent years, there’s been a decided shift in the outdoor apparel market towards soft shell jackets—flexible jackets that offer respectable water resistance and heaps of breatheability and comfort (well, “heaping” may not be the best adjective here, but you get the point). Gone are the days when donning water resistant gear meant slapping on a a coat that felt as comfortable as sandpaper and breathed like a garbage bag.

Strangely, the cycling industry has been a bit slow to jump on the soft shell market. Sugoi was probably the first, with their lightweight Viper jacket. Now RaceFace has entered the fold with the Quantum.

The Quantum uses RaceFace’s unique Wind Chill Fabric, which is comprised of three layers that are permanently laminated together to form one layer of weather protection. The outer surface is a nylon stretch woven material that gives the jacket durability and comfort. This outer layer has also been treated a factory water repellency treatment, so that water beads off the jacket instead of soaking through to your skin. The mid layer is a windproof membrane—it eliminates airflow through the garment—and the inside layer is a comfy micro-fleece that gives you that warm and snuggly feeling. No shit, it is seriously warm and snuggly. That’s not a line from the marketing catalog.

So, how does it work? Well, like most soft-shells, the key word here is “water resistant” not “water proof” . Light rains and drizzles are no match for the Quantum. I’ve been using the jacket on my daily rides to work and I arrive at work warm toasty and dry as can be.

I’ve been reapplying a waterproofing agent to the jacket once every 2 weeks because it rains daily in my neck of the woods and continued use of any waterproofed garment will deteriorate the factory-applied waterproofing. I’ve been using Granger’s XT water repellant spray—it’s better than washing the garment with something like Nikwax.

At any rate, the thing to remember is that soft shells are fine for light rain, but for those crazy, Old Testament, better build yourself an arc-type downpours, you’re probably better off with the garbage-bag variety water proof windbreaker.

Okay, having made the water resistant vs. water proof disclaimer, I should add that the Quantum is a hell of a jacket. It’s comfortable in a way that most cycling garments never are. There are nice details such as a fairly long back side (so you don’t get plumber’s crack on the bike during a drizzle), velcro wrists (so you can seal up that area on the bike), a large back panel pocket for bagels, bananas and that sort of thing (it’s mesh though, so I wouldn’t store anything sharp—like car keys—in it) and a fabric foreskin thing at the top of the zipper that prevents the zipper from digging into the fleshy part of your chin when you’ve got your head down and your hammering away at the pedals.

That foreskin feature (and I’m sure there’s a more pleasant name for that thing, but it’s six A.M., so bear with me here) is, again, pretty common in the outdoor industry, but still sort of rare in the bike industry—Kudos to RaceFace on that one. The Team version of the jacket (show here) also features a 3M reflective RaceFace logo on the chest and arm. A nice touch for commuters.

At $100, the Quantum is actually surprisingly affordable—I’ve paid two bills for my soft shell hiking jackets. Another nice feature—while most cycling outerwear looks like it was stolen from David Bowie’s wardrobe—circa Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars—the Quantum actually looks good off the bike.

I wear the jacket on my commute to work, then I change into a suit and wear the jacket on top. Believe it or not, I’ve actually had three old duffers in my office ask where they can buy one of these things. I’ve never experienced that before. People usually laugh at my cycling clothes or throw beer cans at me and yell “Hey, faggot!”

It’s a nice change of pace.