Review: Review: Santini Guard Jacket
High-tec and high-performing jacket, lacking in colour choices though.
Winter riding means a few certainties, it’s not as glamorous as its summer brethren, it’s gritty and you will get wet! But rain and naffness certainly shouldn’t be an excuse for not going out riding, especially so that it’s no longer the 80’s and we have some pretty high-tec garments out there.
One of those garments, and one I’ve been riding with for a few months now is the Santini Guard. It’s a highly weather resistant lightweight jacket. Ideal for stuffing in a pocket when the weather looks ominous.
If you like your jackets with a race fit, then this could be super for you, those of use with slightly less whippet-like frames may want to consider jumping up a size. Its fit is in part due to Santini’s collaboration with Orica-Greenedge who helped test and develop the garment originally.
The technical nature shines through, with waterproof zips, thermo-welded seams and a silver breathable membrane on the inside, which looks proper swanky!
It has a soft feel to the jacket, with long (4”) neoprene type cuffs to guard against wind ingress – on the flip side, if you have gloves on, then the water will slowly trickle down into the gloves as the jacket’s cuff will fit inside the glove cuff.
With a pair of pockets on the rear(zipped and flapped) it’s not going to complicate things too much.
In use it’s a great jacket, it may not last a solid 5 hours of rain (chapeau if you can hack that yourself!) but having used it for 100km rides in pretty foul conditions it has held out pretty well against the elements.
It’s super light-weight, and scrunches down nicely, so should fit into a jersey pocket if you are hedging your bets pre ride. I was slightly concerned about how it would cope with back-pack rub, but so far so good, its had about 50 hours of use with a heavy bag on and it’s showing no sign of wear.
Down-sides are limited in number, but potentialy significant in manner.
It’s black. And that’s pretty much it, whilst Santini have gone in for a zip garage, they haven’t really gone in for reflectivity or colour choice. With just a reflective tab on the rear, that’s your lot. Bit of a let-down all things considered.
To me, for an item that’s going to be worn in bad weather, and most likely in semi-dark atmospheric conditions, this is not a great thing, yes you’ve probably got lights on, but a splash of colour would go a long way – ad reflective strips work even when batteries don’t…
At £140ish (check out the sales!) it’s expensive, without getting into extortion territory. It does a good job at keeping the rain away, and it does a brilliant job at keeping the wind at bay, all the while preventing boil in the bag syndrome – my only concern is the lack of colour to it.