REV'IT! Sand 2 Jacket

We tried a size Medium and an XL on our Fit Check mannequins Huey and Dewey. Those are sizes they usually wear in an “American” cut jacket. This jacket from REV’IT! fits well enough and it looks sharp, but there is very minimal room left. Many brands from Europe exhibit a fit like this, such as Alpinestars. If you look at REV’IT!’s published size chart (below), you’ll see their estimate of chest size is at least a full size smaller than what you’d find in equivalent US designed clothing.

So, having said all that, and judging the fit ourselves, we conclude that the fit is just about one half size smaller than what you would find in ordinary US men’s clothing. The amount the jackets are undersized is not as severe as REV’IT!’s size chart would have you believe. For most people, this means you’ll be able to buy the size you normally wear if you want a snug, European style fit. If you want a looser American fit, or if you are between sizes, choose one size larger.

Below is the REV’IT!-published chest size for each jacket’s alpha size along with our estimate of max chest and max waist/belly. This particular style is not a “sport” oriented style so there is not a lot of taper from chest to waist, and with a style like this you can effectively tailor the fit of the waist with the side waist adjusters, which makes the jacket look great and fit great, so don’t worry if your waist/belly is smaller than the max. We only list this for those that have a belly so they can know what minimum size they’d have to choose to fit the belly.

Need help measuring? Get it here.

This Sand 2 jacket is like the Swiss Army knife of riding apparel! There is SO MUCH to this jacket I’d bore you to tears if I attempted to describe all the common things, so I’ll just stick to the uncommon things, but first, I’d encourage you to tiptoe through our still images. Just take the “View Larger Images” link above and click through those. the captions and pictures will tell you a great deal. You can also see the nighttime reflectives (which work quite well), and you can see how they look on our standardized Fit Check mannequins.

The big deal in my mind about this style is climate control. I just finished a review of the Excalibur jacket, which is a short waist/sport version of this jacket. The liner system is the same. Here is what I said: This jacket has a pretty elaborate removable liner system that lets you choose whether to use a thermal liner, or a rainproof liner, or both together depending upon the conditions you have at the moment. It is about as close to a four season jacket as you can get. I’d say it is about a 3.5 season design. For warmer weather, the jacket has four front zip vents and a rear exhaust vent across the shoulder blade area. These vents will allow some pretty good air flow, but for really, really hot weather, a solid textile with vents isn’t going to be as good as a full mesh design…. that is why I dub this one a 3.5 season model. But back to the liner system…. it’s an easy concept really…. it has two liners, and you just experiment in different temps and see how each work singularly or in tandem. Once you get some experience with them, you’ll know what works best for you. Be ready for a bit of assembly and dis-assembly though. Between the two liners, there are at least four zippers and about a dozen little snaps to completely take it all out and put it all back in. But that really can’t be helped with a design like this to work properly. And besides, you won’t be changing configurations often. Now everything I said applies to this jacket but it wouldn’t hurt to stress that the zippered venting on this model is a bit more robust than with the Excalibur… and as well it should be because a full touring cut like this will need to flow more air to achieve the same comfort. In the close-up pics you’ll see the long lower arm vents and the front chest vents. The front chest vents have this little strap which can be positioned to hold those front vents open wide to admit for flow. And then this jacket has three rear vents (which is two more than most).

Overall, I really like the styling of this jacket…. it is just so, uh, “REV’IT!” I guess. They definitely have this European/technical/adventure look, whatever you call it, down! Other little niceties I like are softly padded collar trim and the adjustable collar tightness. I also like the quality of the Hydratex waterproof membrane. It really looks high-end in person. I’ve bought some expensive bicycling gear that used very technical fabrics like this and I’ve always been pleased with their performance. There is a connection for zipping the jacket to pants. One little pan: I see a short rear zipper for connection to pants with the liner in or out (there is a short zipper in the jacket shell and also in the liner), but I don’t see the long zipper in the jacket shell… only in the liner. I’ll have to find out what their thinking was on that. Anyway, overall, a VERY nice jacket. :: Paul, 03-11-13

Add a Back Protector: This jacket is made with a pocket to accept a Seesoft CE Level 2 Back Protector Insert type RV (RV refers to the shape). For sizes Small or Medium, choose size 4; for Large thru XXL, choose size 5 and for XXXL and larger choose size 6.