I recently traded my Street Twin in for a Tiger 850 as I find I am increasingly doing longer rides out. I decided it was also time to eBay my RST classic leather and textile cafe racer style jackets to fund buying a new jacket that is more suited to longer rides. I know laminate is the dogs danglies, but there are some advantages to drop liners. Drop liners are more supple so are easier to make comfortable for a given price. When reading about drop liners I had built the impression that the outer layer offers no rain protection, but that is not the case. On a decent drop liner jacket the outer does stop water, it beads on the surface and most is unable to get through to the breathable liner. The rain will eventually get through and get moisture between the layers or 'wet out', but not straight away. According to Motolegends a drop liner jacket is good up to 4 hours of rain before it wets out, which coincidentally is about the range of my backside! I decided to ignore all the received wisdom out there and go for what would be best 95% of the time and look for a decent drop liner jacket. My thinking was that with the popularity of laminates there must be some excellent deals on drop liner jackets to be had. I already had Richa Rain Warrior that I could add if I was expecting a very wet long trip from the off. So after a fair bit of searching I ended up buying a Halvarssons Panzer jacket for £200 from Onyerbike. As far as I can tell this appears to be very similar to the current Wien jacket and used to sell for £400. It has the same polytex protection with reinforcement at the important places, same waterproof breathable liner, similar vents and the Outlast thermal liner. It is properly comfortable, supple and very warm. I will treat it to a coat of Gill reproofing spray at some point, but the outer beads quite nicely as it is. I guess time will tell if this was a good decision, will try and remember to report back. Here it is with Hi Vis panel and neck tube zipped on. Hopefully a bit of food for thought for anyone looking for a new jacket on a limited budget.
