• Sugoi Forum jacket – men’s version also available
• £105
• Sugoi
• 00800 4321 3350

One of the joys of Canadian gear is the wide variety of women-specific kit available, which generally puts British manufacturers to shame, and Sugoi is no exception. From their 2004 winter range we’ve long-term tested the Sugoi Forum windproof shell jacket and worn it in all (un)suitable conditions.

Made from Sugoi’s WindHibitor fabric, the Forum is a close-fitted jacket designed to block wind and insulate on those crisp and chilly autumn and winter rides. WindHibitor is a three-ply stretch laminate designed to be breathable, wicking and of course, to block out the wind: Sugoi claim it’s 95% effective as a wind-block.

The overall look of the jacket is smart simplicity in a classic biking cut. The back is long-ish, though it won’t cover your bum completely, and the sleeves are long. The main jacket zip is full-length and reinforced with a windflap and a high collar protects the neck. Two pockets on the front are invisible and fit neatly in the line of the jacket cut. There’s also another invisible pocket on the left sleeve, which is big enough to take a couple of credit cards, muesli bars or some energy gel. The sleeve cuffs are self-bound with a slant from inner to outer wrist. Twisting up from the wrist, a small amount of reflective detailing on the lower sleeve is designed to be visible from front, back and sides.

When testing the performance of bike clothing it helps enormously when the garment in question is a good fit, so it was good to see that the Forum fitted us perfectly and snugly. In wintery winds the jacket kept us pretty toasty, but was breathable enough that we didn’t overheat. We also wore the jacket in milder weather just to keep the wind off and found it very effective.

Although billed only as a windproof, the Forum weathered showers quite happily – but we’d definitely pack an additional waterproof on longer rides in case of longer or heavier rain exposure.

The jacket was pleasingly stretchy, giving great fit while retaining ease of movement.
Nice features included the ultra-snug high collar and the angled, long wrist cuffs which worked really well with gloves to block out wind without any unsightly elastic. The hidden front zips are very well placed, although unusually, one of our front zips was initially stuck.

The reflective strip is well designed to be visible from all angles, however, our only real gripe with the jacket is that personally we would have liked to have had more reflective strips, perhaps worked into the lines of the front and back panels. This would be less of an issue with the brighter colours, but our version came in grey with black accents (the jacket is also available in blue, black and a slightly dubious-looking magenta, but we haven’t seen it in the flesh) and a little more visibility would have been reassuring.

Positives: Brilliant female-specific cut, relatively light weight, great performance, very comfortable, clean and simple design.

Negatives: It’s not cheap and personally we would have liked more reflective material, especially for the darker coloured jackets.

We really, really like this jacket. It’s super smart and effective and oozes quality. If you’re looking for a windproof shell we’d highly recommend it. Like other Sugoi kit though, it doesn’t come cheap and some riders are likely to want to prepare for British weather by skewing their larger investments towards waterproof gear.

Performance: 4/5
Value: 4/5
Overall: 4/5