Halvarssons Gruven jacket review

The Halvarssons Gruven is a mid-length, two-layer laminated jacket. It is a longer version of the company’s Naren jacket, but could also be seen as a laminated version of Halvarssons’ long-standing, but no longer available, Wien jacket.

The jacket is light in weight, and offers little by way of bulk. In this, it is aided by the incorporation of the company’s latest, super-flexible, Level 2 armour. But what makes the jacket so comfortable to wear is the stretch that is built into the jacket’s outer fabric, in the way that it is on the Rukka Nivala.

Waterproofing comes courtesy of the company’s dependable Dryway Plus membrane; and of course as this is laminated to the inner side of the outer fabric this is a jacket that will never wet out. The L2 armour comes fitted as standard in the elbows and shoulders. There’s a pocket for a back protector, although we would recommend our own D3O protector with Velcro rather than the one produced by Halvarssons. The jacket will also take a chest protector. The jacket rates AA under EN 17092.

The Gruven incorporates all of the kind of detailing that you would expect in a jacket at this end of the market. There’s a removable, thermal inner jacket that has been designed to wear also off the bike as what is known as a destination jacket. And so it doesn’t zip into the jacket. Insulation comes by means of some kind of hollow-form fibre. The jacket is also aluminium lined to reflect heat back into the body. It also has elasticated panels up the flanks, and down the sleeves that should ensure that it is comfortable to wear both on and off the bike. You get two magnetically-attached neck collars. There’s an elasticated belt at the waist. You get two external pockets with flaps. An internal pocket. Zips and a Velcro flap at the ends of the sleeves. A zip to attach the jacket to a pant. And so on. Technically, the matching pant would be the Laggan.

The jacket is well furnished with vents, but it is here that we have a small issue with the Gruven. There are vents on the chest, in the sleeves and in the back. But in addition to the removable thermal liner, the jacket has a fixed Outlast liner. Now Outlast is a brilliant temperature regulator, but our issue with it is that it will stop the jacket venting as well as as it might. It probably means that this is not the jacket you’d wear in the very hottest of conditions.

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