Gear

Has anyone seen these in the shops? As someone who resembles 'the gibbon with a beer gut' I'm wondering whether I ought to try and find one before Rab ruin what sounds like a perfectly good cut...

You get them in Field and Trek Shops.

I tried one on and it fitted perfect, a little too perfect.
I'm average size, (carrying a little bit more than i should).

I will most likely buy one, when i get round to it ~(though the £120 is slightly off putting)

Thanks - I'm planning to pop in the local branch on Thursday so i shall see if i'm tempted to give the bank manager another shock...

The bottom line is that the first batch they had made up were a close-fitting, technical sort of cut, the second batch - which is where our first test jacket came from - was a loose cut with excessively long arms, while the third batch should be like the first.

So.... if you're after a loose cut fleece jacket with long sleeves and a lot of spare material in the body, you want the second batch. The fabric's nice, sort of halfway to softshell, like a latterday, stretcht, Ultrafleece really.

For info, I'm generally reckoned to be a classic 'medium', viz 40-inch chest, 32-inch waist, not much spare fat and slightly wide shoulders. The first jacket was very loose on me, the 'as it should be' one was a close fit, though not quite as tapered as say, an Arc'Teryx cut.

Thanks Jon - I'm definitely more 'Gibbon with beer gut' - generally a standard XL or a generous large, but XXL in some brands 45.5 Chest, 39 Waist, wideish shoulders, longer than average arms (but regular length legs, although with ex-mountain biker thighs which makes trousers interesting) oh, and more than a little excess fat. I used to find old Rab kit in an XL fitted me fine, but when I tried some of their new fleeces recently they seemed much smaller, not just athletically cut like say the MacPac Vapour but smaller all round.

Having tried the Phantom in F&T today I can confirm that the currently available cut it is probably the worst fitting garment in existence. Even on my arms which are on the long side I reckon I had close to two inches more than I needed. Whilst the neck and chest were really snug - bordering on tight, the waist was fairly loose even with my extra poundage...

I tried one on, and it was a pretty good fit.

But since then I haven't been able to find one in a large in either Manchester or Sheffield.

I emailed the general Contact Us email at Rab on the 28th last tuesday asking about any factory shop or info on the jacket, but they still haven't got back to me.

Slightly narked with their slow customer response, so off down to the shops to spend my money elsewhere, maybe North Face (would have been my first Rab product...)

All Terrain at the Loch Lomond gateway centre had them in all sizes about 10 days ago.

Just got one of these sweet jackets over the weekend.

Looks like the fitting is back to technical slim size (but the arms are still a little long).

Now I'm left cursing that its such beautiful weather and not blowing wind and snow on the hills... ;-)

Just picked one up at F&T in the clearance-
£64.99. zipidee doo da.

Ebay is a good place to start looking I would think!