Assos Mille GT Winter Jacket Evo

The Assos Mille GT Winter Jacket Evo is pretty much the only jacket you'll need through the winter, for all but the most bitter days. It keeps the rain out, the wind out, and also lets excess body heat out. All from a jacket that feels less bulky than many jerseys, let alone jackets!

At £225, the Mille GT needs to be very good, as there is some very good competition out there. It is, though. Really, really good.

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First of all, I couldn't get over how lightweight it is. The fabrics and overall construction of the jacket don't feel like they will offer the protection claimed, but they do. Like many jackets, the Mille GT uses different materials placed strategically depending on where they are on the body and whether they are in the firing line of the elements.

The front panels use Assos' NEOS Medium, which is a three-layer softshell with a PU bonded membrane offering waterproofing (10,000mm rating) and 100% windproofing.

Over the six weeks or so that I've been using the Mille GT, the weather has thrown a bit of everything into the mix – cold and dry days, storms with torrential rain, milder sunny days, and even a fair old dumping of snow – so it's certainly had its work cut out.

First up, the windproofing is impressive. In the build-up to Christmas here in the south-west we had a long spell of dry weather with the northerly wind keeping temperatures to around 3°C. With a long-sleeved baselayer (the Endura Engineered) underneath, the Mille GT coped easily with these temperatures and lower, with a few rides early in the morning when it just below freezing. The NEOS Medium material just blocks out all of the wind, even when descending fast brings added windchill.

> Buyer’s Guide: 32 of the best waterproof cycling jackets

It was the same in the rain. I was doing two-hour rides in heavy rain and coming home relatively dry. There were no real signs of water getting through, so it was mostly perspiration. That's not to say the Assos isn't breathable, though. I ride pretty hard throughout the winter and I run warmer than some, so I always suffer with a certain amount of dampness when I remove a jacket.

The Mille GT uses NEOS Light fabric on the tops of the arms and the upper back, where you don't need such extreme weatherproofing; it offers higher levels of breathability than the NEOS Medium (27,000 gr/m2/24hr compared to 14,000). Also helping is the use of the lighter weight fleece-backed RX fabric under the arms and on your back.

When climbing or generally working hard, I never felt like I was overheating or sweating excessively, and I certainly never felt cold on a descent straight after a furious ascent.

Temperature-wise, I'd say I was comfortable with a long-sleeve baselayer on up until about 12°C, and with a mesh short-sleeve layer on up to around 15°C.

When it comes to the cut, the Mille GT is close fitting but not overly so. It's what Assos calls regularFit – when in the saddle you don't get lots of flappy bits of material or any bunching up.

Assos has quite a detailed size guide on its website which allows you to put in your details, from which it recommends which size and also how it is going to fit at the chest and the waist. I've got the medium here, and it is a touch on the close side around the chest; that tallies with Assos' size guide when I've entered my details, recommending a large. From that, I'd say follow the sizing on the site, as it's realistic.

The rear section is dropped a noticeable amount compared to the front for good overall coverage, and thanks to plenty of length in the sleeves there'll be no skin exposed even when in the drops.

The neck is also quite tall, so you get coverage there too, and there is a zip garage to stop any irritation.

At the rear are three sizeable pockets, although I would like to see a zipped one as well for valuables, as I like to know my debit card, keys and so on are still going to be there when I get home.

Assos' Triple Ramp pocket design means they have a flexible fabric panel sewn inside them that can be pulled over the top of the pocket contents to stop things flying about. It's not as good as a zip, but it helps.

The quality is very high throughout. All of the stitching joining the various fabrics together is neat and tidy, and it also feels resistant to being pulled if you snag the jacket on something.

Value

So, the price… £225. Looking back through the jackets we've reviewed recently, the cost doesn't actually look quite as extreme as it first did to me. For instance, the Rapha Men's Classic Winter Gore-Tex jacket is £270, and that doesn't even have the waterproofing capabilities of the Assos.

And the Le Col Pro Rain jacket costs £240; as the name suggests, it's designed to keep the rain out rather than offering the insulation levels of the Mille GT.

> Winter cycling clothing – 49 of the warmest garments you can buy

One jacket I was impressed with recently, though, is the Gore C5 Gore-Tex Infinium Thermo. It's water resistant rather than waterproof, but it still performed well in the rain, and everything else was great – plus it's a relative snip at £169.99.

Conclusion

Overall, the Mille GT is a very impressive jacket, especially when you take into account just how lightweight it is. It performs in all weather conditions. Yes, it's a fair old chunk of cash, but it's not the most expensive jacket out there.

Verdict

Impressive performance against whatever the weather throws at you