Vulpine Men’s Ultralight Quilted Thermal Jacket

UK brand Vulpine has been making high quality kit for years now, and although not directly related to out-and-out performance cycling, its Ultralight Quilted Thermal Jacket is a fantastic garment for quick rides to the pub and doing the dreaded shopping trips around town.

Picking up the Ultralight Jacket at road.cc towers, I thought I would need far longer than the standard month allocated for testing as it wasn't my usual 'performance cycling' choice of kit. What actually happened is the opposite. Give or take the odd item, this is the most frequently used piece of kit I've ever tested. I've worn it pretty much every day at some point for the last month and a bit. Whether it's been riding down to the pub at the end of the working week, or heading out to buy lunch at work, this jacket has been a constant go-to.

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The quilted material is excellent for keeping you warm – good enough that if you wear it on a warmer day you'll get quite sweaty quite quickly. But that's not what this jacket is designed for – it's for properly chilly conditions.

The cut of the jacket suits my proportions (75kg, and a smidge over 6ft tall – 183cm to be metrically precise) really well off the bike. The cuffs are tight enough to keep a cold breeze out, while being wide enough not to be constrictive, and the collar is much the same with the zipper done all the way up.

On the bike, the sleeves ride up a little and the back doesn't cover your bum as well as your standard 'proper' cycling jacket. But again, that's not really the point of this jacket, so I can't mark it down for that.

>> Check out our guide to the best cycling clothing to keep you warm in winter

I don't want to sound overly gushy, though. The Ultralight is a great bit of kit, but it's not perfect. It doesn't stand up to anything more than a light drizzle very well, but Vulpine makes that clear on its website. What isn't mentioned is that both the main and pocket zippers can catch and jam on the surrounding material quite easily. These two points are really the only places I can mark this jacket down. It's been a great bit of kit to wear and ride in, and I would happily buy it with my own hard-earned.

The price is high, but if I consider how much I've used this jacket over the last month and a bit, I really think that it's worth it. Pretty much any time I've needed to go outside I've put it on, and as such I think that a penny under 170 quid works out as pretty good value.

Verdict

The perfect jacket for riding to the pub and walking around town in chilly weather