MHW's lightweight jacket has more features than a Sunday paper, weighs in at 365 grammes and is nicely made and styled. Should you buy it?
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Mountain Hardwear Epic Jacket
Tested
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Price:£90.00
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Weight: 365 grammes (men's
medium)
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Features: Nylon
ripstop face fabric and ripstop stretch panels, Conduit Silk
microporous breathable polyurethane coating with silk
protein, one-handed hem and hood adjustment cords, twin
venting mesh front pockets, glued chest pocket, laminated
cuff tabs, Simplex front zip, waterproof / breathable
stretch panels on lats and rear of sleeves, Ergo hood with
stiffened peak,microfleece chin guard, extra-long pit-zips
with Simplex construction. Stuffs into own pocket. Also
available in women's version.
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More features than Sunday paper.
Breathability not the best out there.
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The Concept Mountain Hardwear decided against using the new
Gore Paclite fabric, instead preferring to produce a lightweight
waterproof jacket using a silk protein-based, mircoporous
polyurethane coating that's similar to the one used by Marmot for
their Precip jackets. It's allowed them to produce a 350 gramme
jacket with just about every feature under the sun at a very
attractive £90 price tag.
Like other lightweight jackets it majors on weight savings and
small packsize, but loses out on durability and, in true North
American style, crotch coverage... It's good that it's also available
in a women's specific version.
Features
Where do you start? The Epic has features a go go. There's an
overall feel of quality and design that's unusual in a sub-£100
jacket and everything from pit-zip, through stretch panels in the
upper back and backs of the arms, through a multi-adjustable hood
with stiffened peak to venting, map-sized pockets. The detailing's right too,
with stuff like a microfibre beard guard preventing nasty chin / zip
interface action.
There's even a cunning, glued-on chest patch pocket to show off
MHW's next year technological wizardry. If loads of features is your
thing then you can't go wrong here.
In Action We've been using the Epic for a while now for
everything from mountain biking and running to hillwalking. First,
weight and pack size are both acceptable, not quite as light or small
as the really skimpy stuff, but certainly pretty good.
We can't knock it for being under-featured and stuff like the
well-designed hood with stiffened peak and pit-zips are nice to have.
Some of it's a bit cosmetic though, those stretch panels, for
example, don't actually do much unless your arm is bent acutely and
you push the point of your elbow forwards, which isn't - in our
experience anyway - a common manouevre.
The cut is short and boxy which will either suit you or not. Some
will prefer a longer jacket, but it does make it unrestrictive for
running or mountain biking. Our advice would be to try it and
see.
Where we were disappointed was with the fabric. The silk-protein
based coating is smooth and comfortable, but it's not the most
breathable material out there. One tester actually thought the jacket
was leaking because of condensation on the inside, while high
intensity activities rapidly overcame the jacket's breathability.
That's not quite so important if you're mainly going to be walking or
run cool, but we reckon there are better options out there for
breathability.
We also had problems with the Simplex inner flaps on the pit-zips.
Because the fabric is very thing and flexible, it had a tendency to
catch in the zipper annoyingly plus the flaps sometimes folded back
on themselves leaving the inside of the zip effectively unprotected. With the venting pockets, it's debatable whether you really need the pit zips anyway.
We'd also have preferred a more substantial outer main zip plaquet.
It's backed up with a substantial inner flap, but only just covers
the zip and, in very windy weather, rain could drive underneath it,
though the backing flap should keep you dry.
You're getting a very nicely styled and well-made jacket for your
money with a load of features which will appeal to a lot of users.
The Epic has downsides as well though. Although the fabric is light
and comfortable, we were disappointed with its breathability,
particularly compared with the admittedly more expensive, New Paclite
garments we've been using. If you run cool though, this may not be a
problem.
We also had issues with the catching pit zips and the Simplex
flaps which we feel would have worked better if they'd been
stiffened. Neither are terminal problems though and if you like the
jacket, we wouldn't let them put you off.
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Performance
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Value
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Pushed for time:
Light, small packing, nicely made and with loads of features
and attention to detail. It's not the most breathable jacket
out there though and we had intermittent problems with the
pit -zip zipper getting jammed on the Simplex backing flap.
Good value if you run cool and want a lot of jacket for your
money.
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