Official Sedici (Cycle Gear) Adventure Gear Field Test

[LXnastynotch93]

There's nothing official about how I'm doing this but I just wanted the thread to sound cool. I'm guessing it's going to be a complete crap shoot on how this stuff performs out in the field. I bought their Sedici Viaggio Adventure jacket and pant. They were "20% off" whatever that means, but it's probably just marketing bullshit. Anyway the jacket seems to be a 8/10 quality wise with the pants being a 7.5/10. The jacket was $240 and the pants $160. One of the loops that holds the liner in the pants already broke lol. The jacket and pant are matching, and marketed as "waterproof" they both have liners with the jacket having a thermal insulated removable liner. The pants have some mesh liner thingy. The jacket has more pockets than a Greek pizza joint, so I'm sure I'll lose shit in there. Oh and it features a drinking bladder for your coffee while you ride exclusively on paved roads on your R1200GSA. Sorry, you'd have matching BMW gear anyway.

I'm taking a dual sport ish ride tomorrow and I'll be sure to put this stuff to the test because I'll fall off the bike at least 10 times in the dirt. So for anyone wondering about the quality of this stuff I should have more info this weekend. Pictures are below.

[LXnastynotch93]

I rode about 550 miles from Thursday night until Saturday morning, with about 100 of those being offroad, so I think that I've put enough miles on the gear to give it a good review.

Usability

The jacket has plenty of pockets, actually more than you need. They're quite accessible while riding, even with large gloves. All the pockets are waterproof as well, which is a nice touch, since I don't have to worry about putting my stuff in a plastic bag to keep it dry. Reaching the zippers on the arm vents and should vents was easy to do because they have red cloth tails on them so they're easy to see. I do worry about the quality of stitching on the cloth tails, because it's not an if but a when they fall off, it will make getting to do the zippers difficult.

Using the hydration pack was pretty easy to do. There were velcro straps that held the straw in place - one on the shoulder, and one near the main jacket zipper. This made it easy to reach down with my clutch hand while riding, and pop open the drinking straw. It flows a pretty good amount of water as well, and you don't have to suck it down like an extra thick milk shake to get water to flow out of it. One complaint I had was that the straw piece which you bite to open the straw kept falling off the open/close fitting on the end of the straw tube. I almost lost it on the road, and that wouldn't have been good.

The pants worked as designed as well. I never used the pockets on the pants because there were so many on the jacket. They stayed tight to my boots while riding, and kept most of the sand and water out. I could easily reach down and open the zippers on the pants if needed.

Comfort and Fit

Surprisingly, both pieces were very comfortable. I'm a medium in most shirts, and a 32" waist in paints, so I bought the accordingly sized jacket and pants and they fit perfect. The inside liners of both were comfortable, nothing poking me, nothing snagging on my shorts when I put on the pants. The jacket has a nice gauntlet of soft stretch (almost neoprene like) fabric around the wrists which was a nice touch, especially for those of you with sensory issues. I will say that the inside liner is quite a bit heavy, even with the extra cold weather liner out. I found the sleeves of the jacket to be the correct length, and so was the body of it. The body of it is cut a bit longer than a sport jacket which helps to keep you sealed up for wet weather riding, especially when combined with the pants. Speaking of the pants, the waist of them hits you above the waist more on the torso, and doesn't cut into your belt line at all. I found the pants extremely comfortable when sitting on the bike or when standing for the technical stuff. The pant leg length is a bit on the long side, but once the legs are cinched down over your boots, they're fine. One complain I had was that the knee pads in the pants were a bit loose. I wish they had sewn in some kind of velcro strap below and above the knee to secure them in place onto your leg. The armor in the jacket was put in the correct spot, and the jacket does feature velcro straps to secure the armor to your body.

Cooling

There are no cooling vents on the pants. I wore basketball shorts and I was completely fine, however I think that is a pretty big design flaw. For whatever reason the Bilt Explorer pants feature large zippers which reveal mesh vents, however these pants do not, which is a bit of a disappointment. The jacket features two vents on each arm, a vent on each shoulder, and two huge exhaust vents on the back of the jacket near the drinking bladder. I had all six vents open, however I was wearing a backpack, so needless to say I was pretty warm in the 80 degree heat. Without the backpack, the jacket cools much better. When you're stagnant and not moving, don't expect much cooling, and it gets hot pretty quick in there. However, at speed I found the airflow adequate but not excellent. I think there is something left to be desired in the cooling aspect of the jacket, as well as the pants.

Durability

This I can attest to. I came off the bike at about 20 miles an hour on a hard pack dirt road, went over the bars and did a summersault. The result of the crash was a bent foot peg, scuffed Sena headset, and broken turn signal, which honestly isn't bad at all. To my surprise the gear held up very well. When I got up to inspect myself, I looked over the pants and the jacket and there were no scuffs, no tears, no rips, not even a broken zipper. One of the knee pads did move a bit when I went down which is disappointing, but I only came away with a small monkey bump on my right knee which I can live with. My main concern with this Cycle Gear stuff is that it's a throwaway set of gear that's good for one crash, however it seems that this stuff can take a pretty good beating and survive. On a side note, over time I'm sure some things will wear out, so I can't attest to the long term durability of this stuff quite yet.

Conclusion

For $400 for the set I would say this stuff is pretty good. That's less than you can pay for just a jacket from Olympia, First Gear, Klim, etc. While this stuff isn't perfect, it definitely is a viable option for someone who is on a budget and wants some good adventure/touring gear. The lifetime warranty is a huge bonus that not many other companies (if any) offer. I would definitely recommend this setup for someone who's on a tighter budget or as backup gear for more experienced riders with some deeper pockets.