Gore Alp-X jacket

lite weight jacket with heavy weight performance

Review: Gore Alp-X jacket

By Scott Mares | Published Apr 2, 2011

We Liked

The Gore Alp X jacket is a highly technical off road rain jacket. Now its a shell. Its not a winter jacket. So if you like to mountain bike or off road and you need a shell or rain protection with lots of features read on. If you are looking for a winter jacket then look else where on this site. This Jacket is made from GORE's lightest material that they make, the entire jacket is made from GORE-TEX Paclite material. This material is very thin and completely water and wind proof. So if you need to take it off , you can store it in a jersey or back pack very easily.

This jacket is made to hug your body. One thing I hate is when you are busy riding and you are constantly reminded that I'm wearing a jacket that does not fit right. GORE put stretch inserts on the arms to hug your arms but not constrict your movements. This is very noticeable when you are blazing through the single track and you have to change directions very quickly. So good job on the cut of this jacket.

Other features include a retractable tail in the rear that you snap up. That rain tail also tucks up behind a very large rear pocket. That rear pocket has a zipper that allow full access to it. There is one other zippered pocket. It is on the front left chest with a vertical water proof zipper making it a Napoleon pocket. This is not as big but big enough for some small important items like keys, money, bank card and ID. There is also a Hood that comes with this jacket that you can either roll up and have hidden under the collar OR you can totally zip it off. We chose to keep rolled up as it kept the water from dripping down our neck.

We do like that there is a pretty good amount of coverage of reflective material on the jacket. So what do we mean by that? Well when we look at the coverage we are looking to see if there is reflective materials in all directions that you could be looked at. So its good if you have reflective material on the back but what about the sides and the front? The GORE Alp x jacket has that coverage. The reflective piping is on the logo on the collar, the front pocket, sides of the rear pocket, back and front of the sleeves. this gives the wearer back, front and side coverage.

We Didn't Like

There are a few little things that we thought Gore missed on this jacket. But those little things are really small. However, the one thing that brings the score down on this jacket is the vent or lack there of . Most jackets have a set of vents on the sides or the arm pits. The GORE Apine-X does not have the traditional venting system. When I called them up to talk about it they told me that the vent was in the front zipper. I was told that the mesh between the front zipper and the jacket was the vent. When I Initially saw it I really didn't think of it as that. Even though they had the right idea of the wearer being able to open the vent up while riding and not having to stop. For us it just was not enough really to get the air moving. The reason is while you are riding the air hits your chest right where the mesh is and the entire front of the jacket is pushed up against our chest. So because of that it creates a seal and does not allow hardly any air to move across the body for venting.

The other thing that we didn't like and thought was kind of odd is that the draw string could not be let out all of the way. So there was always tension around the bottom of the jacket. We would like this feature to be upgraded so that you can totally take off the tension on the waist draw cord.

One feature I didn't see or find on this jacket was a loop for a blinky light. This would be a welcome feature for any one that is out in the rain for long periods of time or when its darker outside. Here in Oregon its the law to have lights on your bike at night. I think it should be the law everywhere actually. So if the light is higher on you its easier to be seen by a motorist.

My final thought would be to offer it in another color like a light blue. The red is a good color but the GORE Alpine-X jacket that we got is a darker red and its not as obvious to motorest as some other colors when its pouring rain outside. In my ride in the rain for over 3 hours I think I would have felt a bit more comfortable if the jacket was a lighter color.

The Final Say

The Gore Alpine x jacket is a first rate jacket. I can tell a lot of thought and time went into the construction of this garment. the fabric does exactly what we expect from the people at GORE. Not only does this jacket look good but it preforms good as well. The pockets are easy to access while riding and the rear has a long enough pull tab on the zipper so that you can easily open and close it while in the saddle and with gloves on. Where this jacket falls a little short is that the venting on it is limited. Gore was thinking outside the box on this one and just didn't quite get it right. The front of the jacket was pressed into us not allowing any air to pass though and we had to watch to make sure that the 2 zipper flaps did not fold back into place and cover the mesh. we will make a up date on what GORE plans on doing with our feedback later on.