Dirt_Dad said:
Yesterday I a chance to see the Klim Badlands jackets and Latitude pants at a dealership. It was a chilly day and I arrived wearing my 3/4 length Fieldshear jacket with liner installed. Shedding my Fieldshear and picking up the Badlands jacket I was very surprised at how lightweight the Klim felt. It did not feel like a jacket that would be very useful below 50 degrees. I'm trying to keep in mind that GoreTex is not like any fabric I've experienced before, so my ability to assess the performance is probably lacking.
They did not have any Badlands pants, so I tried the Latitude. I was glad to see my understanding of the size chart was accurate and the predicted size worked.
Still working on swallowing the price of this gear, but I am leaning this direction.
I have a Lattitude Misano jacket, wore a Darien for the previous 9 years and 200k miles. I've got about 24k on the Klim, including the IBR last year. Yes, it's waterproof, except the outside left patch pocket.
Killed a camera before I started putting it in a plastic baggie.
After living with it for a year or so and 24k miles, I still dislike the long sleeves and the lack of sleeve gussets. The venting is still slightly better than the darien, but some of the features that the Badlands has, and the Lattitude does not, like collar hold open snaps, are missed.
The wife has the new full set of Klim Women's gear. Her jacket has the collar hold open tabs/snaps and slightly different venting arrangement, but works well. The pants venting is Meh, but better than nothing on a very waterproof set of pants. Still a FAIL on the leg zippers. Klim has not listened to customers on that issue yet. Full length zippers to the hips are something they should do. Gussets on the pants legs are good, but should be velcro adjustable and a zipper for open and close, not the snap over the zipper, where you have to do the snap every single time you put the pants on. Same as the sleeves of the jacket, Darien does it better with the velcro adjust, then a zipper to make in and out, on and off quick and easy w/o having to re-adjust every time.
Currently I'm wearing Olympia pants, (MotoX), which have great venting, but are not water proof. Waterproof liner included and it works as advertised, but I rarely put it in unless I know I'm in for a day of rain or a frog strangler. More typically, I spray the pants every season with Scotchguard and live with the water intrusion at the zippers. It dries fast when you're just passing thru a storm, then back into good, (warm), weather. Full length zippers, but the knee armor never did fit quite right and I had alterations to move it to a better position and shorten the too long pants for my, (fat), waist size. That really made a positive difference and was worth the $75 to the seamstress.
As for Jax to Prudhoe, not doing that, but will be doing a major AK trip in June for about a month. Got the mosquito netting and 99.8% Deet, as well as the permathin and riding gear. Going to spend about a month on the trip and much of it in AK or YT.
You can put up with a lot of crap on the road. At the end of the day, making your life easier is about putting on the gear before you're uncomfortable and ditto for taking it off. Or you pony up the cash for gear that allows you to adjust while riding instead of changing gear. Both work. Do what works for you.
At this point, I think I'd buy the Darien again instead of the Klim, after living with the Klim for the last year and 24k or so. I usually ride more, but have been saving up for AK instead of riding everywhere I wanted to.
Is what it is. Probably the last big trip for a long time, but hell, been lots of places and ridden lots of miles, so no complaints.
