Castelli Perfetto RoS 3 Jacket

In its latest iteration, the Castelli Perfetto RoS 3 uses a brand new fabric from Polartec to deliver a carefully calibrated blend of protection from wind and water while giving noticeably more breathability than most competitor tops. I found that it requires a little experimentation to get the hang of how best to layer it for various conditions, but with the right layers it works well in a range of conditions.

Does it “revolutionise breathable protection” and “rewrite the gold standard of what high-performance cycling gear can do” as Castelli would have you believe? Well, read on…

Rain or shine

Ever since Castelli first launched its Perfetto range in its short and long-sleeved versions, the brief has been to give protection against the elements that sits somewhere between a jersey and a waterproof jacket. This iteration, the Perfetto RoS 3, uses Castelli’s Rain or Shine designation to show its intended use includes less clement days, but Castelli’s marketing messages on this front are interesting.

We did a news story at the launch, in which we covered the move away from Gore fabrics (as used by Castelli in every prior Perfetto generation) to a brand new fabric called Aircore, from Polartec. Castelli says that Aircore uses a membrane made using a hypodermic needle charged at 20,000 volts, which sounds pretty dangerous to me. What’s that? You’d like an hour-long podcast about Aircore to hear every last detail?

The need to create high-performance fabric technologies in a post-PFAs era is clearly driving a whole bunch of research, and Castelli has an exclusive (together with sister brand Sportful) as the only cycling brand using Polartec AirCore fabric.

So what is the Perfetto 3 RoS then? Castelli describes it as a jacket. OK, not just a jacket – “the perfect jacket for most conditions”. And that “most” hints at an interesting angle in what it’s bringing here. This is not, you may be surprised to hear, the zenith of waterproof winter warmth. Indeed, Aircore’s selling pitch is that it is *much* more breathable than other winter jackets and waterproofs, and “essentially waterproof”.

You’ll recall that when Castelli first launched the Gabba, there were plenty of other, more waterproof offerings on the market, but the Gabba kept racers dry enough, warm, and most of all aero enough to win races. The Perfetto’s brief is similarly to keep you dry enough, but with a 5-metre hydrostatic head, compared with the 20 metres that some hardshells offer, absolute waterproofing is not what this is about. Castelli says that “rain only falls with a hydrostatic pressure of around 800mm, so the 5,000mm test score AirCore achieves means normal rain would have to fall with 6.25 times more force than it usually does to permeate the fabric”. More on what “essentially waterproof” means in reality in a minute.

The Perfetto arrived at my house in a smart white cardboard box. It looked expensive. [Checks notes] – it IS expensive at £280. Taking it out of the box, my first thought was that it felt thinner and lighter than I’d expected for a jacket. Fabric weight feels more like a mid-weight summer jersey than a jacket, and there is no insulation to speak of. That is not that far removed from how earlier generations of the Perfetto range felt – certainly a lighter fabric than the original Gabba. It is well put together, as you’d hope in this price bracket, with neat stitching and very shiny reflective tape over the seams across the shoulders (where the rain hits hardest).

Up front is a double-ended YKK Vislon zip with a nice red Castelli scorpion tag on the main zip-pull. The zip isn’t a waterproof one but is covered almost all the way down by an external storm flap. As with previous versions of the Perfetto, this stops a couple of inches above the bottom of the zip. I’m not quite sure why, other than perhaps that it makes it easier to grab the lower zip with a gloved hand while riding.

There is no zip guard at the top so the metal part does touch your throat, but the neck isn’t cut especially tightly so I didn’t find it bothered me. The neck is lined with a mesh internal layer which is comfortable if not exactly cosy against your skin.

There is not [grumble grumble] a loop for hanging it up, which in my book there should be, if we’re calling this a jacket. I’ll come back to that.

Fit & sizing

What about the fit? Italian sizing is a widely discussed topic in cycling, and from my experience I’ve generally needed to size up when wearing clothes from Castelli. Castelli’s sizing tool recommends an XL when I input my height and weight, and that’s the size I tested.

Around the torso it was sleek, but as there is a generous amount of stretch in the horizontal direction, it was pretty comfortable with one or two layers underneath.

The sleeves are of an ample length which meant that it was easy to get an overlap with my gloves.

There are the regulation three pockets at the back and they’re a decent size. Some previous Perfetto versions had just two, and this wasn’t a popular choice with our reviewers so it’s good to see Castelli revert to the more common arrangement. That said, it would have been nice to see an additional zipped pocket in which to keep keys safe.

The pockets have drain holes at the bottom, harking back to a Gabba design feature. Here they have reflective reinforcement around the holes. As with other similar jackets I’ve used which prioritise breathability with some water resistance, I did find the contents of my pockets could end up damp when I was working hard.

Operating temp

What are the conditions where the new Perfetto RoS works best, then? Castelli cites a temperate range of 4-14°C which I’d say is quite a broad range but one achievable with careful choice of layering. The stretchiness and low-bulk nature of this jacket certainly helps here. In the low teens, with just a lightweight jersey or baselayer beneath it, the Perfetto was very comfortable on dry rides, and when I worked up a sweat on a hill, it escaped notably quicker than in one of the best waterproof shells like a Shakedry.

Anywhere below 10 degrees, I wanted another long sleeve layer below it, either a warmer baselayer or a midweight long-sleeved jersey, and right at the bottom of Castelli’s temperature range I’d want both of those things.

At the start of the test period, I tended to overestimate how much warmth the Perfetto gives, layering as though I was wearing a conventional hardshell jacket. Although it’s not thinner than a shell, the extra breathability means that you can feel the wind that bit more, and at times I found the amount of air coming through it left me in danger of getting cold. Once I’d recalibrated how I was layering, I found the Perfetto could offer a very comfortable environment.

It’s November as I write, and an unusually mild one. On some days you can be setting out on a ride when it’s 6 or 7°C and it can be fully 10 degrees warmer by the time you get back. Those are tricky conditions to dress for, and ones that really don’t suit the Perfetto as much as other options in my wardrobe. Although it’s not a warm jacket, it is still bulkier than a lightweight shell and doesn’t fold down to fit in a jersey pocket, so if you set off wearing it then you’ll be wearing it until you get home.

I use ultra-light shells, gilets and arm warmers a lot at this time of year because if it warms up then I can stash them and avoid getting too hot in the second half of a longer ride. Castelli might point out the zipped vents either side of the stomach which you can open, although I didn’t generally find that these made much of a difference. You can, of course, also just open up the front zip from either end.

My preference at this time of year would be a long-sleeved jersey and either a gilet or a lightweight shell jacket depending on how iffy the weather was looking, and I can’t see the Perfetto changing that.

Rain resistance

What of the RoS (Rain or Shine) designation? Reflecting on Castelli’s suggestion that its 5K waterproof rating is enough for rain much more powerful than “normal rain” (whatever that is), I set out to do my stock test of a waterproof. This involves riding an e-bike quickly into the rain, with a long-sleeved cotton T-shirt underneath to show up any ingress. The use of the e-bike and the flat course means I can be confident that any water has come in rather than being from sweat.

It was raining, but not especially heavily when I did this test. As mentioned above, there is taping on the seams on the shoulders, but there are still plenty of places that water can get in – most notably the seams on the sleeves but also those tummy vent zips, and my T-shirt was wet in those locations within 15 minutes.

In short, I’d translate “essentially waterproof” as “offering some water resistance”, broadly comparable with the Sportful Aqua Light that I also tested this year. 

Jacket or jersey?

Castelli describes the Perfetto as a jacket, although as I’ve said, it’s not a jacket that you’ll be removing unless you have luggage. I think it more closely compares to how I’d wear a jersey, which of course you’d expect to be wearing until the end of a ride.

Compared with something like the Le Col Aqua Zero jersey, it’s not as warm but has more water resistance. It’s perhaps a bit more akin to the Castelli Alpha Wind of a few years ago in terms of weight, warmth and water resistance, except without the double front layer that offers.

In short then, there are conditions where the Perfetto 3 RoS is a really good option – it was effective at keeping drizzle or moisture from low cloud out, and with the right choices of layers the breathability was palpably better than the other jackets I typically reach for. If you’re someone who doesn’t ride a lot in the wet, and especially if you find that sweat build-up in a jacket is a problem, this could work well for you.

Value & conclusion

Does the Perfetto 3 justify its price, then? Well, no, I’m not really convinced that it does. At £280 it’s a premium product, and there are some excellent alternative jackets available for that outlay. Sure, it uses a new and exclusive fabric, and someone’s gotta pay for the science behind that, but most jackets in this price band offer one or more of the following: much better water resistance, more warmth, better packability. If you have none of those, talking about unrivalled breathability only goes so far. Because, well, jerseys are often pretty good in that respect too.

> Buyer’s Guide: Conquer the cold and rain with one of the best cycling jackets

For that sort of money, and for my use case riding year-round, I’d want a jacket that offered more in terms of water resistance, like the £270 MAAP Atmos (which also packs down and breathes pretty well too, according to Mike. I have similarly priced jackets that have much better water resistance at the cost of a bit less air permeability, and others that also don’t fold down to pocket-sized but which have enough warmth for use through the winter.

The conditions in which the Perfetto works best are those where I’m quite happy with a long-sleeved jersey and a gilet, and I’m not convinced that it offers any real improvement over that combination.

Verdict

It is Perfetto in some specific conditions, and not as good in some others – a little underwhelming at this price

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