The Gorewear Concurve Windstopper Insulated Jacket was hanging on the back of the cupboard door for months waiting for the right day to use it. You know the one; proper winter: biting wind, teeth-chattering cold, the kind of conditions when only the recklessly insane dare step outside for a run.
The trouble is…even now, deep into December, I’m still not sure the UK has quite delivered the weather this jacket was built for.
Editor’s note – as of 8th January it IS the weather for this jacket!
Technical Specs
- ePE WINDSTOPPER® Liner by GORE-TEX LABS
- Airpermeable face fabric
- PrimaLoft® Active Evolve Insulation
- Adaptive thermal insulation
- Recycled Lightweight Nylon Woven
- Totally windproof
- Reliably breathableWeight: 342 grams
I’ve had it packed and ready to go for serious race action a couple of times.
It made the start line of the Pen Llyn Coast to Coast winter ultra in early November, but I rapidly overheated and the jacket was stashed back in the vest at the top of the first climb.
It was also destined to be the jacket of choice for the Escape from Meriden race a week later; I imagined it could perform well at the slower pace demanded by a more controlled 36-hour trundle across the English countryside. But as the day drew nearer, it was clear the first night of the race was aligning perfectly with the eye of Storm Claudia and such a jacket may likely wet out in a couple of hours.
I’ve also worn it on a few training runs in varied autumn and early winter conditions.
Just last night, it was the outer layer for a three-hour bimble around the rugged Clwydian hills in North Wales. The conditions were perfect; clear sky, dry, with a breeze, and a low of two degrees. However, the jacket was still too much as soon as the path pointed me towards the stars.
I wonder how much colder it needs to get before the jacket settles into a comfortable effort vs moisture / heat equilibrium?
I’ve read another independent review that said the jacket was “fantastic at 45F” (7 degrees). I can only assume the wearer was moving at 15-minute miles. Nothing wrong with that rate of progress, of course. And maybe that’s where the jacket would come into its own; on something like day two or three of The Spine, when you have largely stopped actually running and multiple layers of clothes are needed to stay warm and comfortable at a much slower pace.
It feels harsh to be too critical. Technically, it’s a good jacket – with features such as ePE Windstopper liner by Gore-Tex Labs, PrimaLoft Active Evolve Insulation, totally windproof. With a retail price of around £245, you would expect it to be packed with such advances in outdoor fabric technology.
The fit is excellent; athletic without being restrictive, sits comfortably in motion, and doesn’t flap around – although the lining seems to make it noisy. Not ‘empty crisp packet in the pocket’ noisy, but noticeable all the same.
The hood is good: tight enough to stay in place yet comfortable, working perfectly with headphones. I’ve ditched a hat entirely because the hood does a good job on its own. The two outer pockets are well placed, it sits well on the lower back and the bottom draw-cord does a job.
All-in-all, the quality is superb – exactly what you’d expect from Gorewear. The recycled nylon outer feels both soft and tough, the stitching is immaculate, and everything about it just feels premium. It’s one of those jackets that reassures you the moment you zip it up that this isn’t a piece of kit that’s going to fall apart after a season of abuse.
There are a couple of gripes that hint that maybe the team behind the jacket didn’t do a critical enough job of thinking through its end use.
Firstly, pit-zips would be a logical solution to helping to manage the internal climate.
And Gorewear are not alone in neglecting the next issue; Most runners wearing this will also be using a smartwatch for mapping and metrics, but the semi-elasticated cuffs make no allowance. I ended up hitching the cuff up the arm, which exposed skin to the weather. Raidlight – and others – do a transparent ‘watch window’. OMM fabricate Velcro cuffs that better accommodate watches and winter gloves. So workable solutions do exist.
But my real problem is that I just can’t place where and when the jacket works best.
I can more easily say where it doesn’t work best; when running hard and pumping out heat. The jacket is simply too warm and can’t transport moisture away quickly enough, even when wearing only a thin, technical base layer underneath.
Heat and moisture transfer can be a problem for any premium insulated jacket designed for running. But in the sort of weather conditions that I would may consider reaching for this Gorewear jacket, I have a couple of others that I would probably turn to first. For example, the OMM Rotor Smock is ultra-light at just 230g, windproof, insulates when wet via Primaloft Gold and packs down to half the size of a Coke can.
So I keep coming back to this thought: how often do most UK runners actually need a jacket this warm? On still days, or in the more typical 3–7°C winter band, this often feels like more jacket than necessary unless the pace is genuinely easy or conditions are particularly savage.
It would likely excel in places that have endless days of brutally cold, clear, dry days. But that’s not the UK.
For the rest of us running in normal British winter weather? The jacket is probably an expensive nice-to-have amongst the arsenal of winter kit. But you might be waiting, like I did, for the rare days when conditions finally match the jacket’s capability.
About the Author: Garry Doolan lives on the Wirral with his family, close enough to alternate running trips in Snowdonia and the Peak District. With regular finishes in UK ultras over 100 miles – including the Spine North – he now has sights on running further afield. If age and injury can be tamed.
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