REV’IT! Everest GTX Jacket Review

First, let’s discuss the fit. The Everest GTX jacket is listed in the Rev’it “Touring” section on their website. The Rev’it website can a bit confusing — selecting “Touring” and “Gore-Tex” on the home page doesn’t seem to lead anywhere, so skip that and select the “Products” button instead, way down in the right-hand corner.

Once there, select the “Men”, “Touring” and “Jackets” check boxes…then select the “Gore-Tex” tab. Whew! We made it.

There are two jackets listed when selecting this combination of categories: the Legacy GTX and the Everest GTX. Curiously, both jackets are cross-listed in the “Textile” section also. The Defender GTX (review), the Cayenne Pro (review) and the Rev’it Sand jacket (review) can be found under the “Adventure” category.

The reason I’m taking you on this categorization tour is to illustrate that the Everest GTX jacket is apparently considered a Touring garment by Rev’it; the Everest GTX jacket and pants are listed in the Rev’it catalog as having a “Tour Regular” fit.

This was a surprise to me — I was under the impression that the Everest GTX outfit would be a sort of “Defender GTX to the Max” — something like a “Professional Use Only” adventure-touring outfit. Instead, the Everest is styled and cut much more like a jacket and pants you’d wear for street/sport/touring or full touring.

This is not a negative by any means; just a surprise, because sport/touring seems to be a forgotten category by most manufacturers recently and to think that Rev’it put their ultimate tech into a touring outfit is pretty interesting.

Not that the outfit can’t be used for adventure-touring — and this, of course, is the problem with trying to put anything (including people) into a specific category.

The Everest outfit does have a different feature set than the Defender outfit and it also has a different fit. First of all, the size large Everest GTX jacket and pants fit our model like a bespoke London suit. Honestly, it could not have been a more perfect match — and it looked absolutely mahvelous.

The fit is snug, as it should be, but the size large fits exactly as it should. It’s street/sport/touring snug, with a fit that is closer to a street (non-motorcycle) jacket and pants than for off-roading or adventure-touring.

This means that the cut, styling and tailoring give the Everest GTX outfit more in common with a two-piece sport/street/track rider’s suit than a bulky adventure-touring outfit that would be worn over several layers and a pair ofVendramini Elefant boots (review).

But the styling and tailoring also make for a very comfortable outfit. Something to note is that the slightly “harder” or “stiffer” surface finish and feel of the Gore-Tex Pro Shell material provides a different feel to the wearer than the Defender GTX.

The outfit also has a lighter feel when you’re on the bike, due to the absence of the (unnecessary) waterproof liner. The lighter weight is definitely noticeable, offering a more liberating environment when riding.

With the outstanding Exkin Air insulation, all you need in cool weather is a light under-layer from a good pair of dedicated motorcycle underwear (reviews), such as the Sub Zero (review) stretchy undies or the Spark thermals (review). In fact, wearing these types of ultra-quality stretchy thermals under the Everest GTX outfit is a liberating experience to anyone who has been wearing the simple lower-tech motorcycle garb of the proletariat.

The jacket even has a sleeker profile and look than the Defender GTX or Cayenne Pro; it’s bereft of the exterior accoutrements of the Defender GTX, Sand jacket or Cayenne Pro, which add to its sport/touring style.

The typical adventure-touring focused jacket has more pockets, zippers, vents and other Swiss Army knife chaff hanging on it — including things like hooks for hydration bladder hoses and the hydration pack itself. It’s the Carhartt overalls to the Everest’s three-piece suit.

More examples of a trimmer design philosphy can be found in the arrangement of the pockets and the clever layout of the arm and waist adjusters.

The Everest GTX jacket has two front pockets (waterproof) with open hand warmer slots behind. The only other pockets are inside the jacket, one on each side, covered with a horizontal zipper. The jacket does not have the vertical wallet pocket in the placket that is featured on most of the other Rev’it jackets.

The arms have a single snap adjuster on the forearm, along with a new (for Rev’it) type of upper arm adjuster that cleverly hides the adjustment slider under the arm, which keeps the profile of the jacket looking very sleek indeed.

The rear adjusters are also semi-hidden (from the front view anyway), with large “V” shaped elastic straps joining an anchoring lever bar over the kidneys on either side. The lower front strap is another clever design; it terminates inside the hand warmer pocket, effectively hiding the strap from view.

The jacket also has a hidden adjuster at the hem, on the inside of the shell. This can be tightened to block air from coming in underneath. There are dual attachment zippers inside the jacket, full length and a shorter zipper which connect to the Everest GTX pants or other matching Rev’it pants. The full-length zipper is another clue that the Everest jacket has more sporting pretensions than the Defender, Cayenne Pro or Sand jackets.

The rip-stop material used in the Defender GTX jacket is also used to good effect in the Everest GTX, with contrasting gray on the shoulders and along the back of the arms in this gray version of the jacket. Black on black is also available.

The back of the elbows and the “wings” in the back of the jacket (black vertical bars in the photos) are a type of Gore-Tex elastic material, which gives the jacket some stretch with style.

The Everest GTX is definitely waterproof; we have established that, as described at the beginning of this review. One of the features that ensures that water integrity is the use of the new Gore “Lockout” zipper…sorry, I mean “closure”.

I first described this technology in this 2009 report, which includes a video animation of the zipper. The first production version of the Lockout zipper was previewed in this Everest GTX jacket “First Look” during my August 2010 visit to Rev’it USA headquarters.

My guess is that some of the delay in getting the Everest GTX to market was due to a revision by Gore of the Lockout zipper design. This most recent version, used in the current Everest GTX jacket, seems different — in a good way.

I don’t have an original to compare it to, but looking at the photos of the first version of the Lockout zipper indicates that the current production version is wider, slightly thicker, with a different channel design that replace the traditional zipper “teeth”.

The new design, as implemented in the Everest GTX, also places the Lockout closure on a wide section of rubberized backing, which is then bonded to the jacket shell. Indeed, this may have been the design change that slightly delayed the final production version.

The Lockout closure is positively waterproof, and in a way that no other zipper can be. The newer version also has a larger pull, which provides more leverage to slide the runner up and down. The Lockout closure requires slightly more effort to open and close than some — but not all — traditional zippers.

The vents and other openings in any motorcycle jacket are usually the weak points in terms of water integrity. This is another reason why a removable waterproof liner is usually the most efficient, effective and least expensive way to go to keep the rider dry.

Vent openings are especially difficult to design correctly, because even the stitching can cause a leak if it pokes through the bonded liner.

Jackets that claim to have a waterproof outer shell can also prevent the transfer of heat and moisture from the rider’s body. Basically, in the past, you could have water resistance or you could have ventilation, but you couldn’t have both.

The use of the Gore-Tex membrane in higher-end motorcycle jackets has changed that, for the most part. The Gore-Tex Pro Shell used in the Everest GTX is waterproof at the outer boundary, and the Lockout zipper design maintains that integrity.

The two Lockout closures used for the front vents on the Everest GTX jacket work well and, contrary to initial reports by some, do not open unexpectedly. They can be bent, twisted and abused, but you have to really, really work at it to pop one open without using the slider. And if you do, all it needs is a quick up/down with the slider and it’s self-sealed. My feeling is that it’s probably easier to pull apart a traditional zipper than the Lockout system.

The jacket includes a horizontal vent across the back, just under the flap that holds the reflective material. The traditional zipper, while not as wide as the rear vent zipper on the Aerostich Darien (review), is effective when used with the open front vents. Air can be felt flowing through the jacket, at least when riding a motorcycle without a fairing that might block the air flow.

But the overall ventilation system provided by the Lockout system isn’t quite as effective as we’d hoped. In cooler weather, there’s no problem. But there seems to be a tipping point around 75 degrees F, where the absence of arm vents and the Gore-Tex shell conspire to keep in more moisture than a jacket like the Defender GTX, which has the removable Gore-Tex membrane liner, allowing more air to seep in through the jacket shell and directly through the vents.

The arms also have an internal barrier near the cuff with elastic, presumably to maintain waterproof integrity by not allowing any water to flow in. These also block any air that might help ventilate the arms.

The Lockout closure vent is no different from a traditional zipper vent in another regard — it doesn’t stay open any easier or wider. So the vertical vents on the front of the Everest GTX jacket don’t provide as much ventilation as they could. The potential is there, because Rev’it designed not just a small slit in back of the vent, but about a 60 mm wide mesh opening. If the Lockout closure and the vent could somehow be pulled open farther, more air would enter the jacket.

Thus, so far I’m going to have to call the Everest GTX jacket a three-season design. We’ll have to wait until the really warm weather arrives to learn more, but I don’t think it will have the ventilation needed for the hottest weather, unlike the Defender GTX (which admittedly hasn’t been worn yet in hot weather also).

And in somewhat of an irony (for a Touring jacket), riding behind a big fairing on a touring bike like Burn’s old BMW K1100LT means that there is no air flowing over the jacket, which reduces ventilation even further.

There’s another design feature of the Everest GTX jacket that biases the jacket more towards cool weather riding; it’s the collar, which is taller and thicker than usual. The collar feels snug, which is fine when it’s cold or rainy. The Rev’it collar adjuster could probably be made even longer or repositioned, because I barely had enough play to snap the collar to the first position without making it feel too tight.

The jacket has a removable insulating neck liner, which appears to be also made from the Exkin Air liner material. Removing the insulating part of the collar (and stowing it in the pocket at the top of the Exkin Air liner) definitely helps. But after it’s removed, the collar on the Everest GTX jacket is still tall enough to block air flow to the neck, which can make a difference in those 75+ degree temperatures.

When the insulating collar is removed, the half of the zipper teeth remain in the jacket collar, along with the zipper that connects the insulating liner. There’s another ridge left by a seam, then some neoprene, but the neoprene is topped by another piece of lining with another seam.

All of this gives the collar a rougher feel than expected, and the combination of the tall collar, which keeps in some heat and sweat, and the rough edges makes for a scratchy experience.

UPDATE: Just thinking…This problem might be solved if there was a second zip-in collar, made from a soft and thin material, that could replace the insulated collar in the jacket after it was removed.

The Everest GTX, like the Defender GTX, uses the high-quality SAS-Tec GmbH brand armor (SAS – “Sicherheit aus Schaum” or Safety of Foam/Safety of Foam Systems) in the higher-end jackets and pants.

The armor is included in the shoulders and elbows. The snug fit of the jacket keeps the armor in place, but the sport/touring cut makes the armor feel a bit more noticeable than the slightly different fit of the Defender GTX jacket. The arm holes on the Everest GTX do feel just a touch tighter than an adventure-touring cut also.

Also like the Defender GTX, the Everst GTX jacket has a thinner EVA foam back pad and the pocket is designed to fit an optional SAS-Tec back protector which is optional. At this price though, it should be included.

The Everest GTX has strips of 3M highly retro-reflective material located on the arms and back. The material is very thin and sealed on to the body of the shell without stitching, which helps improve the water resistance.

You can see in the photo above that the material really pops when hit by light.

Sleeve Cuffs

The system, which includes the shorter length mesh liner also described above, allows the sleeves to be adjusted to the rider’s preference, then the lower part of the zipper is opened to allow quick entry and exit. This avoids the necessity of re-adjusting the hook-and-loop strap each time the jacket is worn and it saves wear and tear on the hook-and-loop.

The front zipper is also an unexpectedly simple design which again illustrates the touring bias of the Everest GTX jacket. Since there is no removable waterproof liner, there is no multiple flap arrangement under the zipper like there is on other Rev’it jackets.

The Everest has a simple unbranded zipper and a short flap that covers it using hook and loop.

The liner attaches in the sleeves with are two snaps in each cuff, just upstream of the elastic storm cuff. The snaps are a bit difficult to access, due to the storm cuff, but overall the liner is easy to remove and insert.