Gear: The North Face LWH Jacket & Torrent 8 Pack

June 5th, 2013 • BY Kelly Bastone

The North Face LWH Womens Biking Jacket

Who among us can claim to truly adore her hydration pack?

I’ve used a few passable ones over the years, but they all seemed like imperfect necessities until I tried the new Torrent 8 Pack ($110) from The North Face. This is The One. Everything about it—from the fit, to the bladder’s fill mechanism, to the backpanel ventilation—hits the bullseye and makes this my pet piece of gear.

It’s part of a big, new mountain bike roll-out from The North Face, which sought input from its roster of sponsored cyclists to debut pieces like the Torrent 8 hydration pack and the LWH jacket ($125, another one of my Spring/Summer ‘13 faves).

What makes this hydration pack better than most? It doesn’t bug me while I’m riding. The shoulder straps don’t chafe my neck or anything else, thanks to the women’s-specific design. The back panel uses deep honeycomb mesh and channeled padding to dissipate sweat and stay put (even on rocky downhills, it doesn’t bounce or jostle around). The storage is perfect for lunchtime workouts, yet somehow manages to accommodate enough food and equipment for epic rides. And instead of a sack-style bladder, the Torrent’s chamber is O-shaped (which prevents water from sloshing around as I drain it).

The North Face LWH women’s biking jacket is another smart, cycling-specific design that improves upon basic jackets. Its sleeves zip off to adapt to changing weather, like the kind I experienced on a recent springtime ride in Sedona, Arizona (where warm sunshine gave way to clouds and graupel halfway through the circuit). The DWR (Durable Water Repellant) treatment makes rain and snow bead off the fabric—an advantage over ordinary arm-warmers. Come fall, I know I’ll wear the vest on the climbs, then add the sleeves to keep me from cooling down during the descent.

As a vest or jacket, the LWH is breathable enough to wear through hammerfests and sustained uphills, thanks to stretchy panels on the sides and underarms that use FlashDry (a fabric additive) to accelerate evaporation. And bike-specific styling makes a difference: The hem is longer in the back for full weather protection when you’re bent forward, and there’s even a zippered pocket for a pouch of energy chews.

Bottom line: Both pieces are truly optimized for mountain biking, which makes them feel more like treats than tools.

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About Kelly Bastone

Once upon a time, contributor Kelly Bastone lived in the Big City of Denver, Colorado, where she visited the mountains as much as she could. Then she wised up and flipped the arrangement: Ten years ago, she moved to Steamboat Springs, where she skis (resort, skate, and backcountry), hikes, mountain bikes, fly-fishes--and occasionally ventures forth from her beautiful mountain valley to visit cities worldwide. A freelance writer,— More about this author →