<Return

Home


Effectiveness as a Windbreaker

  I was curious to see how well the Gerbing heated jacket liner would perform as a standalone windbreaker, without the help of a riding jacket over it. Specifically, I was curious to see two things:

1) how well it could seal out the cold wind
2) how effective it was in preventing warmth from radiating out

It's sometimes difficult to tell just from riding as there are other pieces of equipement worn ie riding jacket, etc. To isolate the liner and test its thermal properties, I set up to use it during a 75 minute cold weather walk with the winds blowing. I encountered the following conditions:

Temperature: –4C (24.8F)
Winds: 35-40kph (20-22mph)
Windchill: –11.6C (11F)

For this test, I wore jeans, cotton t-shirt, wicking T-neck, jacket liner, ski tuque, G3 Gerbing gloves.

The jacket liner protected my inner temperature as I walked out into the windy night with nothing but the liner on. My metabolism furnace kicked in and began producing body heat at about 15-20 minutes into the walk. By 45 minutes, I had accumulated enough body heat that I needed to open the front zipper for 5 seconds at a time to let out puffs of heat. I needed to do this every 10 to 12 minutes or I would overheat! Even so, by the time that I came home, my t-shirt was damp. This was with a windchill of -11C (11F) and wearing nothing but the liner as windbreaker.

The above findings tell me that the Gerbing jacket liner is very effective at sealing out the cold and excells in preventing inner warmth from being lost by radiating outwards.


<Return

Home