Klimatik Guscio Racing Jacket

The Klimatik Guscio Racing from Alé is a lightweight jacket, perfect for when the weather catches you out.

Choosing a rain jacket is always difficult. Do you want something for when it’s absolutely hammering down and it’s going to be like that all day? Or maybe it’s one of those spring days, where rain will come at some point during the ride. For the first you want something heavy duty that’s going to keep the deluge at bay. For the other, the Klimatik Guscio Racing looks to be just right.

If you head over to the Alé website you’ll find seven jackets that bear the Guscio name. These cover pretty much every variation of wet and windy riding. Some like the Thunderstorm will see you through those day-long downpours. Meanwhile the Light Pack is more of a wind-breaker, perfect for early morning starts.

Klimatik Guscio Racing fabric

However the Klimatik Guscio Racing seems to me to be the kind of jacket you could wear during a wet race or hard training ride. It’s made from Klima idro-tech 2l, which is a fabric containing 73% polyamide and 27% elastane. The elastane gives it some stretch, which contributes to its close fit and lack of ‘flappage’ when riding.

Looking at the waterproof rating for the Klimatik Guscio Racing jacket, Alé say it has a 15.000mm/24h rating. Meaning that over a 24 hour period 15mm of water will penetrate the jacket. As I’m unlikely to be riding for 24 hours, this seems about right. Looking around the internet for information on waterproof numbers, it seems that clothing around 10-15.000mm, “will withstand most downpours as well as heavy snow“. However it will “soak through over time if subjected to pressure.” The pressure alluded to is of the physical kind, rather than the intensity of your ride!

First ride thoughts

My first ride with the jacket was a two hour medium paced ride, with intermittent rain and wet roads. I kept the jacket on the whole time and had a short-sleeved base-layer and thin long-sleeve jersey. Temperatures were around 10 degrees C; a typical spring ride in the UK. During the ride I never felt too hot or felt any uncomfortable build up of sweat. As the jacket was new the rain beaded off the DWR surface easily. When I removed the jacket there was a little moisture build up around the shoulders and sleeves; nothing that I’d felt while riding.

Features

All the seams are sealed and the zip has a waterproof coating and is backed with a storm-flap. A silicone strip runs all the way around the base of the jacket. I found this did its job well and stopped any unwanted riding-up. The sleeves have a simple elastic opening, with enough stretch to let me access my watch easily; not something you can do with some jackets.

The Klimatik Guscio Racing has a close, race fit that I like. The stretchy fabric moved easily and always felt comfortable. The rear of the jacket doesn’t have a drop tail, which could be a problem for riders without mudguards. Not a problem for me, but perhaps in a race, perhaps it could start to be uncomfortable? However, that lack of tail means the jacket rolls up small enough to easily stow away when not needed.

The high-cut collar is finished with a soft fabric that is very comfortable; no chafing there. Around the back is a large reflective logo, just above the bottom of the waistband. That’s perfect for the catching the eye of any other road-users, as it will be right in their eye-line. With only a light-blue KLIMATIK logo on one sleeve and the yellow Alé logo, it looks very cool and minimalist. Available in five colours, I had the black version, which may be not the best colour for visibility.

Conclusion

Well after my first ride I’m impressed with how the Klimatik Guscio Racing performed. The ride I did was just the kind that I imagine Alé had in mind when designing it. While I didn’t experience any torrential downpours, there was plenty of drizzle, rain and spray from passing cars. The stretchy fabric meant that there was no annoying flapping when riding into head winds. There’s nothing worse then hearing that flapping knowing that it’s your jacket making it even harder to push through the wind.

Are there any negatives? Not really, some may miss a dropped tail, by I didn’t mind that. It helps keep the jacket small and light. Would a small internal pocket be useful? Not really, this jacket is meant to go on and off easily, so you don’t want ‘stuff’ cluttering up the inside. Also, once you stowed the jacket away, how would you get to anything stored in an internal pocket? So, no. I don’t have any negatives about the jacket; nice one Alé!

Check out the Klimatik Guscio Racing on the Alé website. Looking for more foul-weather gear? Take a look at our Alé Tornado preview.