Friday, April 1, 2011

Product review

Bicycling bloggers often seem to do reviews of stuff they receive as bribes presents from vendors of bicycling-related products. I'd like to do that also. Mostly because then I'd get to keep the stuff. But since my blog is regularly read by only 4 people (hi Jim, Bob, Jimbob and Sauron), I don't seem to be considered worthy by the bribers. Well, I'd like to review something anyway. I'll just go ahead and review my old Halti bicycling jacket that I've worn for two years now. Yes, it goes together with the pants that I wrote about in the post before this one.

Well, the brand is Halti, I forget the exact model, which doesn't seem to be written down anywhere in the garment itself. If it ever was, it's been worn out by dozens of machine-washes. The colour is black...ish. There's a picture of a leaf on the back. There's not too much insulation. In fact there's none. Which is good. If there were, I'd have been boiled already. I tend to get hot very easily. If I get cold, I can always add layers.


The jacket looks more vigorous with me in it, trust me.

Good things about the jacket:
  • It blocks wind rather well
  • It doesn't get immediately soaked in a light rain
  • It is light
  • It is not too hot
  • It hasn't gotten any holes in it in two years
  • The zipper still functions after two years
  • It wasn't too expensive
  • It doesn't flap around too much (since I got the size S)
  • There's a pocket for the mobile phone (that I've never used, since I only discovered it just now, while inspecting the jacket for this blog post)
  • There are some reflectors.
Not so good things about the jacket:
  • Close to the zipper, there's loose cloth that tends to get stuck between the zipper. I hate getting imprisoned by the jacket whenever I'm hot, sweaty and exhausted.
  • The pockets are hard to open with gloves on. They could have attached bigger thingamajiggies to the zippers to make the operable even with gloves on. Come to think of it, I could have done that myself. D'oh!
  • If you manage to open the pockets with gloves on, and pull out the keys/a banana/what have you in there, the lining comes out as well. They could have attached the lining so it wouldn't come out.
Further on with the review. The bouquet is musty, voluptuous, vinegarish. Perhaps slightly... fruity. Rich. Spicy. In-your-face. Expressive. Somewhat nauseating. It tells a story about a solitary battle against the elements, the majority and conformance.

The taste is somewhat disappointing. While the bouquet promised wildly exciting adventures, the taste is somewhat flat, dryish. Even after countless hours of simmering in various fluids, the texture is still rather sinewy and nearly inedible. Perhaps it would be possible to cut this jacket into pieces and then deep-fry the pieces into delicious crisps, but as a stew it simply doesn't work. In the end I only managed to swallow one sleeve, and that required 4 bottles of wine to go with that. Not cuisine I'd recommend to anybody but my dearest mortal enemies.

Overall, the jacket did pretty well, though. I'll give it a solid **** (stars, not a dirty word).

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