Sierra Designs Cagoule and Chaps are finally available

Weight and price are certainly right

I pretty happy with my rain system, but will be extremely interested to get some feedback from real-life, in the field testers.

Please, any one who takes the plunge on these, post your experiences.

I was thinking about getting one of these, with a design that looks great for the PNW. However, I have a question about the PU-coated fabric:

Are the "mechanical" features of the cagoule (the always-open underarm vents, the front flap) really enough to keep inner condensation low when the fabric lists what seems to be a low-MVTR of 6700?

I ordered the chaps. Waiting for the refund check and more vendors to start carrying it before I buy the jacket.

I got the chaps in today. They were a little too long for me, so I need exchange them for a Medium I think. These are size Large and I'm 5'10". Very well made. They did get pretty steamy while wearing shorts and in my house after a few mins of wearing them.

The front of the chap is reinforced

nm

I don't know if they are universally the same size for the legs or not. I'll let you know when I get the Med size, but the large one fit perfectly on mine and I have fairly thick thighs. They have a little stretch to em.

(I'll try to give you folks an idea as to my size for comparison)

I ended up pulling the trigger on the jacket and received it in the mail today. Quite disappointed, hopefully I'll be able to return it for a refund, but at least it was only 100 bucks.

When I tried it on at first I thought the large was going to be a perfect fit. I'm 5.11, 180 pounds with an athletic cut. It almost seemed to be bordering on snug for rain wear. The problem arose when I tried to put my pack on while wearing it. No matter where I shoved the waist belt through (under the flap or through the holes for your hands) the belt would cause the jacket to bunch up around my stomach.

My torso length is just shy of 21 inches, I use a large HMG windrider and it fits me perfectly, but for this jacket to work for me I would have to have had a much larger torso size. Exchanging the jacket for medium might remedy the length problem but would be to small in the chest (44 inch chest girth) and going up in size clearly wouldn't help.

Perhaps it'll work for others, but I've never had such an oddly cut/sized jacket in my life.

nm

@Dave, You nailed it.

There is Velcro but I think it's there in order to hold the flap down in high winds. You would have to have a much longer torso before they would be usable for adjustments.

Also after looking over the jacket some more I'm not quite sure the pit vents would really be that helpful. They are awfully small.

I'd love to be able to test the jacket out and give y'all some perspective on how well the design works on the trail but the crazy bad cut prevents this.

Thanks for sharing. I had high hopes for this set up.

Can you post pics?

I'll get some pics tonight or tomorrow. I let the cell phone die and will have to recharge it before I can snap pics. That and I'm just naturally a lazy person so it might have to wait till morning. I'm just enjoying this chair a bit much at the moment.

I'll make sure to get some though =D

Nothing beats a comfy chair.

I'd appreciate it. Thanks!

This is as good as it gets. When I take a few steps it becomes much worse. At best a gutter as you see in the photo, but if I move it quickly becomes much more pronounced.

As for the pit vents, the diameter is about equal to my beer can. (That's a scientific measurement in my book!)The actual area exposed is quite a bit less when you have it on. (Unless of course the cops have you cornered and your arms are up over your head)

edit, maybe I should add that I have my belt loosened and pushed down more than I normally would like. The biggest problem being that since the cut is to short and the belt is pushing up on the fabric it causes the ventilation to be reduced to pretty much nothing.

I actually PM'd Michael from SD regarding this thread. Would like to see his input on this.

I too am interested in this. As a former custom clothing designer I look at that and see the fix, but customers shouldn't have to do any mods. And the sizing concerns me. My older Sierra raincoat is a men's XXL and it fits but in my opinion its a small XXL. And I don't see this new cagoule offered anywhere in XXL.

Glavin from SD here. Thanks for the heads up, Dave.

I can speak generally to the fit and performance of the Cagoule and Chaps, but I continue to use my original prototypes, and do not have production samples in my hand to speak about. I'll get a set and post again here if I learn anything new, which is possible but I think unlikely.

Chaps:
The chaps come in 3 inseam lengths: 28" (SM/MED), 30.5" (Large) and 33" (XL). In hindsight we should have just sized them for inseam vs using the traditional "pant" sizing. I am hoping Jeremy's situation is just a sizing issue (assuming he has shorter than 30" inseam) The girth of the leg is "graded", but most should nail it based on inseam length. Note: You do NOT want them to be too short. Best fit is pulled all the way up so the inner thigh seam rests just below the break in the pant/short it is worn over. In other words: pulled all the way up. Then, we have found having enough to cover the break in the foot at the ankle works well with low gaiters or even just over dirty girls and sneakers.

Cagoule:
The picture Matthew took shows the front of the skirt being pushed up by the hip belt. Shorter torsos, or folks who wear their belt high, or a combo, can have the vent push up. I cannot tell exactly what is happening in the picture, but pulling up on the "tail" a bit can balance it back out. If that does not solve it or it feels funky, I agree it is a poor fit with his body and pack, something we had not seen in testing where it looked like this:

Here's the thing about fitting around a hip belt. All jackets have "ease" built in to the sizing so that the fabric hangs on you, not clings to you. but when you put a hip belt around them, they have to get "bunched" because that ease is compressed under the belt. For the cagoule, what happens is that the tai tends to get smoothly wrapped around behind your back when you put the hip belt on, then all the "ease is sitting in the skirt (front), and you get bunching. The solution, like with all jackets, is to squirm around a little until the bunching is evenly distributed and comfortable.

The other thing that happens is that the tail tends to get shorter than the skirt while wearing the the pack, so the velcro strips have been designed to connect wherever the overlap happens after going over the belt.

We did not have testers who were not able to get a good fit with the hip belt vent. That said, the area does need to be "dressed" when the pack goes on ensure good positioning of both the skirt and the tail.

Mathew: Can you take a few more pictures so we can see what's happening a little better?

Note: The fabric has 6700g MVTR on the ASTM Test, and 31,500g MVTR on the JIS test (the one all the manufacturers use because the number is higher). On the knee of the chap, which is 3 layer, the MVTR is 4,900g ASTM and 29,000g JIS. 7300MM of water entry pressure on the 2 layer body fabric and and 12,600mm on the 3 layer section in the knees.

I have a 30" inseam. Hopefully the smalls will fit better. I sent them back to BackCountry on Friday so hopefully by end of next week I'll have the smaller pair.

I haven't looked in the past few days, but I did notice a lack of a size chart when I looked at your site and on BackCountry.com for the chaps. I took a guess at the larges.

Thanks for the response Glavin. After reading and rereading your reply I have managed to improve how the jacket lays a little. It's still not perfect, but it may be workable.
The photo of the fellow in the girly pink colored jacket helped in my understanding of how the jacket should lay. (The diagrams on your website show the skirt of the jacket being even all the way around. I assumed that was how it was meant to sit) A lot of my problem may have simply been user error. I'm used to wearing regular jackets and poncho's which haven't required the sort of adjustments this jacket requires to make it sit right.

Thanks for responding Michael.

Based on comments here we re-checked the TOP samples (top of production) to verify that the fit is correct as intended. This appears to be the case, as shown by our "models" Jose (Product Development Manger) and Martin (Creative Director) below.

Matthew:

I'm the guy in the pink jacket. The team thinks its funny to sample me in "fanciness"……..

I just stick out my belly and try to wear it proudly!

The riding up I was able to remedy somewhat by not being an idiot. The jacket unfortunately is not going to be a fit for me though. It is disappointing as I was really looking forward to trying out the design. Sizing down wouldn't work as my upper body is too large (For the jacket) which would make the cut restrictive and sizing up would bring on other issues with how I have to adjust the shell to fit my packs belt.

Don't just wear the pink proudly, own that sh… =D