It is inevitable that in winter riding you’ll end up in rain, and we all know that old adage “there’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad kit”. Pas Normal is a brand I most closely associated with fashion rather than quality cycling kit, though it has made strides in recent years to develop a much improved performance range.
The Essential Shield jacket has stacked up well in our buyer’s guide to the best winter cycling jackets, being chosen by Josh as the best choice for extreme weather, so I decided to trial it on the worst-weather days of my testing, sticking to the roads I knew were most exposed to give it a good going over.
Design and aesthetics
I’ll admit that it took quite a long time for me to warm up to the shape of the Essential Shield jacket. I’d still say that it isn’t my favourite cut of those I’ve tested; the Pearl Izumi WXB Attack women’s jacket for instance is more flattering, but I am now far more sympathetic to the specific design choices Pas Normal have made in crafting it.
In my riding I much prefer a looser fit jacket as it’s easier to accommodate a layering system and I find racier cuts rarely suit my body shape. In the Essential Shield Jacket though, Pas Normal has completely eschewed tailoring and created a very boxy straight cut with a shorter torso tapering into a very long droptail. Off the bike this is a really strange design. I felt a bit odd walking into the cafe with what I felt must look like a diaper – the drop tail being so effective that it covered the entirety of my rear snugly. This quickly became one of my favourite features though, as I’ll get into soon, and I soon forgot my initial distaste for it.
As this is a much looser, less tailored fit, identifying the right size was fairly easy to nail. I went for a small and felt happy with my selection; my slightly curvier frame (bigger chest and hips than the average size small) was pretty well accommodated for.
With a few chunkier layers underneath, I did notice that the jacket became slightly tight across my chest. The front of the jacket is composed of four panels which puts a seam right over the top of my bust and while on the bike this is less noticeable – there is ample fabric across the back for shoulders – a more upright position or any stretching did lead to constricted movement. This is perhaps a bit picky, it didn’t affect my riding, but it’s an issue that doesn’t appear on the men’s Pas Normal Essential Shield…
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