5

Uber lightweight & Super warm!

Review: Mountain Hardwear Lado Jacket

We Liked

We were really happy to hear that Mountain Hardwear was interested in having us review some of their great products. When the box arrived I noticed that it was pretty feathery. I actually thought that they had forgotten to send me some stuff and just sent me an empty box. I opened the box and I was wrong. It turns out that Page had sent me the Lado jacket to test out. My first impression was that I really liked the color and the softness of this jacket. But I also thought that she had sent me a light weight jacket. I was thinking how can this jacket be warm? It hardly weights anything. But its my job to try stuff out in crappy conditions so I thought I was going to take one for the team on this one. Nope! Not even close. This jacket is very warm. I thought to myself so how can this be? Well it turns out that the folks at Mountain Hardwear used a special insulation in this jacket call Thermic Micro insulation. This Thermic Micro insulation is super light and compresses down very easily. This makes the jacket very light weight, packable and warm.

This jacket is packed with lots of nice little features that separate it from other jackets in its class. Happiness was found on a cold day when we put our hands in the pockets. Mountain Hardwear's Lado's pockets are fleece lined and are cozy warm. There is a inside pocket to stash any small stuff that you may want like keys, cell phone an energy bar or some id. I have some pet peeves when it comes to jackets and I only use the word hate when I really mean it. I hate getting a draft in a jacket on a cold day. I hate wearing a jacket that allows cold air to come in either through the bottom of the coat or though the cuffs on the sleeves. Apparently the people at Mountain Hardwear hate this as well! First they gave the cuffs on the sleeves a soft "Butter Jersey" fabric that is doubled over and effectively seals out the cold, very nice! The next thing that they did was put in a dual hem elastic draw string on the bottom of the jacket. This will ensue a great fit on your body and keep body heat in and the cold out.

We Didn't Like

I have to be careful giving recommendations for the Lado jacket. Otherwise it would kick it up into the next category of heavier jacket. So the trick here is to find areas to improve, keep it in its price point all the while NOT moving it up a level in the jacket higher achy.

This jacket has a lot of performance to offer its wearer in being light weight, warm and packable. While the Mountain Hardwear Lado has elastic draw strings at the bottom and soft butter fleece at the cuffs of the sleeves to keep the cold from rushing in it needs something to keep the heat from escaping through the top of the jacket. Now, we cant have a drawstring around our neck, as that would cut off blood supply to our brain cells, and we would call that 'bad". So we would like to see the inside of the collar of the Lado jacket to have a polar fleece lining. This is the only thing I would improve on this jacket.

The Final Say

Watching people turn themselves inside out racing cyclocross is fun! Standing out side in the cold while being cold is not! So are you looking for a light weight, packable jacket that packs a big punch? This jacket will do just that all the while looking good as well. The Lado is loaded with not only performance but with lots of features that make this jacket a light weight heavy hitter. You will find yourself reaching for this jacket time and time again. We love it! 5 cow bells Mountain Hardwear!

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