What is the purpose for your jacket?

What is the main job that you want your jacket to perform?  Is it protection from wind, give you warmth, keep you dry from rain and/or increase your visibility in poor weather.  It could be a combination of these things – List from the most important job to the least important job?

Don’t be afraid to have more than one? 

To keep you on your bike and moving around during adverse weather it is important to have options.  You also need to buy for where you ride the most – different riding environments require different styles of jackets.  If you really want to ride all year and through all types of weather you must have the gear that will allow this to happen.

Portability

How will you carry your jacket?  How important is it to be light weight or pack down really small… buying for back country, remote, tour style riding requires you to think of weight & space.  Most other jackets will be easy to carry on your bike or in a bag.

Performance for Safety

Do not compromise on a jacket it you need it to perform in extreme conditions.  It you are choosing to go riding in isolated or back country areas you have a responsibility to take gear that will keep you safe.  Being dry & warm and therefore preventing hyperthermia is incredibly important.  If you are taking your family into these places please consider the level of protection you have provided them with.  Waterproof jackets are an investment but will give you the confidence to know you will be safe if the jacket is exposed to adverse weather.

Technical terms explained

There are often a lot of terms surrounding gear that is designed for active use.  Waterproof, water resistant, breathable, wicking.  What are the must have features?  Does having one mean you can’t have another e.g if a jacket is truely waterproof how can it be breathable?  Depending on the length of your riding and how hard you will be working try to rank these features in order of importance.

Visibility

Increasing your visibility is a real feature of a jacket.  As an outer layer your jacket can really add to your presence in traffic or around other riders.  This becomes even more important in adverse weather when visibility is poor.  We recommend that anyone riding regularly in traffic make bold colour choices with their jacket – yellow, orange, red, fluro green, bright blues – these are all good options.

What do the kids need?

This depends on where you want to take them and how comfortable they are about riding in weather that is not perfect.  Multi use & portable are good considerations.  Wind & waterproof is ideal.  Add layers underneath for warmth. As they get older and ride more e.g to school on a daily basis or to back country isolated places, they will need gear that will perform.