Sugoi Women’s Icon Jacket

The first thing to note of Sugoi’s Icon is the extremely flexible, stretchy material used. It’s low bulk, very quiet, and seemingly impermeable to mucky scuffs and brambles alike: all good things for a jacket destined to spend lots of time kicking around in a bag as well as on the trails. It does feel a little weird against bare skin, though.

The cut is pretty roomy, which is welcome enough when you want to pile up the layers to stay warm. It’s got zipped pockets at the rear, a pair of zipped handwarmer pockets and a pair of zipped chest vents, too – these are unbacked, but kept from gaping by a neat webbing tab, meaning they’re still usable when it’s wet as well as warm.

You either get hoods or you don’t. I do, and I do like the Icon’s simple but effective version, though I’m not convinced by the magnetic fixings for it, which also feature on the drop-down extended back. They work well enough for swift removal of the hood, but they’re not quite so effective at keeping the seat flap tidied away. In fact I’m not sure seat flaps are that useful for mountain bikers at all (even though Sugoi bills this as an all-mountain jacket) – I’d be tempted to (carefully!) snip this one off, adding it to the spares box for later repairs and doing away with the annoyance altogether as the cut has enough coverage on its own.

Overall: Close to my perfect packable jacket. Rolls neatly into a pocket when stripped of its hood and very tough; get rid of the seat flap and we’re there.

Jenn.

Review Info