New product from TNF and Husky Canvas

When this cold weather gear dropped through the letterbox it was obvious who would be best placed to test it – so off it went to Jacob Gibbins our photographer/web bitch to test them on the side of a cold, wet mountain while getting some rad photos, here goes from Jacob…

The North Face have been making top quality outdoor gear for years, so when I got these two to test I had high hopes. I have a Summit Series Thunder down jacket and a windstopper riding jacket.

A bit on the Thunder jacket first, at an RRP of £180 this is a top quality down filled puffa style jacket… I haven’t had chance to use it in anything really REALLY cold but I went for a nice walk today up on the moors wearing just a tee shirt underneath it, legs in jeans where freezing but my top half was nice and warm…I think I’ll be spending a lot of time in this over the coming months. There are a bunch of really nice features and great attention to detail here with things such as a draw string waist, that you can adjust from in the pockets so you don’t need to take your hands out and get them cold! That kind of detail is apparent throughout the jacket, so here’s to a good month or so’s testing…

Next is the Dirt Track windstopper soft shell at £135 RRP. This strikes me first off as a more bike friendly jacket, its water resistant however saying that I went out in a very heavy shower, the kind where you get soaked in a matter of seconds the other day and this thing acts like its made of wax, the droplets of water don’t soak in and instead just bounce right off it, get in a shop or under a tree shake off and like magic your bone dry again…

Couple that with the fact its 100% windproof and it makes for a great light weight all round jacket. It has a bit of a tail on it for riding bikes, and zip off sleeves if you feel like running a gilet instead. All in all 2 very nice jackets that I will have a lot of time and chance to test to the full over the coming months…

Keep an eye on the next issue or if not the one after for the full reviews of these two, but I can already tell they wont be crap…

We’ve also got a couple of lovely Husky Canvas t-shirts, the quality is great – organic cotton and hand printed (in the UK!) for just £20 is a bit of a bargain in our book. Anyone who has been to Llandegla will remember three canvas prints in the cafe, just to the left of the TV screen – those are done by Husky Canvas too!

The clean, minimal designs look great compared to some of the god awful MX inspired t-shirt designs being pumped out at the moment.. definitely worth a look for an early Christmas present perhaps? (mines an XL!)