Castelli has today launched an all new Gabba jacket, the Gabba R, with Soudal-QuickStep riders reportedly spotted wearing it during the teams recon of the Paris-Roubaix course.
The name ‘Gabba’ has an almost unmatched status when it comes to foul-weather race gear. It sits alongside Shakedry in a revered category. The original Castelli Gabba jacket was genuinely a paradigm shift in terms of how racers dressed when the elements closed in, so much so that non-Castelli sponsored teams would buy them at retail price and blank out the logos.
While the Gabba has undergone various iterations and bifurcations into other lines like the Perfetto, the general formula has remained more or less unchanged; a windblocking and water-resistant jersey that breathes well and keeps you warm even if you get wet. If you haven’t had the pleasure of using one they are really quite something, and the closest analogy is that they’re like wearing very thin neoprene. I still have my original Gabba on a hanger nearly 8 years after I bought it, and it still holds its own amongst far younger jackets.
Now, though, Castelli has brought out an entirely different jacket to the Gabba line: The Gabba R, where the R unsurprisingly stands for ‘racing’. Unlike the Gabba and many of the Perfetto jackets, it is a membrane-based garment rather than being simply water-resistant.
Like the lion's share of the best waterproof cycling jackets, it uses a polyurethane membrane, as jackets nowadays cannot use PFAS, or per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (essentially substances that use Fluorine to you and me, or so-called forever chemicals). Unlike any PU-membrane jacket we’ve seen before though the GabbaR has the fit of a race jersey; it’s totally skintight.
The details
The Gabba R is, according to Castelli, 'functionally waterproof'. It has a hydrostatic head figure of 5,000mm, which is 5,000 shy of what it needs to be considered 'totally waterproof'. The seams, too, are untaped, to maintain the stretch and fit. It appears that Castelli is favouring fit and breathability over making a garment absolutely impervious to water ingress. If you’ve even worn a Shakedry jacket the appearance of a film-out garment won’t be new to you, but here the jacket is clearly a lot more stretchy, combined with a stretchy backing fabric.
This skintight fit has the effect, according to Castelli, of making the Gabba R more aerodynamic than the brand's Sanremo time trial skinsuit in some situations. In a road position, it's about 1% faster, while in an extremely aggressive position, it's around 1% lower. Compared to the brand's other foul weather range it's faster across the board; a 2.5% improvement over the Gabba RoS, a 3.5% improvement over the Perfetto RoS, and crucially a 4.5% improvement over the Slicker rain jacket.
As with Gabba jackets lately, there is both a short sleeve version and a long sleeve, with the short version designed to pair with the brand’s Nano Flex arm warmers. The rear pockets are mesh over the membrane with a mesh backing too, to avoid water filling up, and also to stop your hands from sticking to the film. The long sleeve version also features an outer fabric on the forearms, again to avoid any film stickage when grabbing things from your pockets.
The PU membrane is, Castelli claims, “orders of magnitude” more breathable than others, but also not as breathable as the now-extinct Shakedry. The figure it has put for breathability is 20,000g/m2, which is more or less bang on other PU membranes on paper, but there is a possibility that the skintight fit may act as a modifying factor.
As with every new, PFAS-free jacket I’ve tested it appears as though the PFC-free DWR simply won’t hold up to prolonged exposure in the same way as a fluorine-based one will. Clips that Cyclingnews has seen of Kasper Asgreen training in a test unit show the outer surface wetting out, but this is I’m afraid par for the course, and more or less impossible to counteract with fluorine-free chemical treatments.
Luckily for you I have also had my hands on a test unit for a while in advance of the launch, and have been riding it in some pretty horrendous weather, as well as on sunny days too. I must say, I'm really impressed. Head to my Gabba R review to hear all the juicy details.
