Patagonia Dirt Roamer Storm Jacket – Great Purpose-built Rain Jacket for a Mountain Bike Enthusiast

Drew Thayer

The Patagonia Dirt Roamer Storm jacket is the answer to wet-weather trail riding: a lightweight, purpose-built rain jacket designed specifically to keep a rider dry while pedaling a bicycle. 

By 3 PM, the wool layer on my chest was damp through and through, and I was starting to get cold. The day had started sunny and warm – 45 miles behind me on the first high mountain pass of this bike loop – but the monsoon rains moved in a couple of hours earlier than forecast, and a thunderstorm front caught me around 11 AM as I was grinding up to Boreas Pass.

The Patagonia Dirt Roamer Storm jacket feels a bit baggy at first, but once you get in position on a bike it makes sense. The extra space allows you to quickly pivot, stand, and sit on the saddle without restraining your motion. The big, roomy hood also fits great over a helmet, so you can actually ride with a hood on.

It was slow going on my bike loaded with frame bags, so I had to grind it out in the rain. Anticipating precip on this overnight bike-pack loop, I’d brought my lightest raincoat – Patagonia Storm 10 jacket – a great little 8.3 oz shell that’s durable and breathes pretty well [reviewed HERE].

I trust it to keep me dry from storms in the mountains, and it hasn’t let me down yet. However, I learned on this long soggy slog in the saddle that mountain biking for hours in the rain places unique demands upon raingear, and I had plenty of time over the remaining 25 miles to identify all the ways in which I was getting wetter and wetter. 

I could feel cold water seeping up my wrists and through my shorts near my rear pant line. My neck was soaked – despite fitting well over a climbing helmet, I couldn’t get the hood to fit over my bike helmet, so I had to just ride hoodless, and my hair, chest, and upper back were thoroughly wet as a result.

I also had to take the jacket off for long climbs; my body produced too much heat, and I couldn’t vent it fast enough. Super light raincoats like mine don’t have pit zips, and I could open the neck zipper, but then the jacket just got floppy, which got really annoying as I negotiated slippery rock gardens and roots. 

By the end of the day, I was glad my loop was over, and I didn’t have to camp again – I was soaked. With longer rides planned this summer, and a multi-day traverse in the works for next year, I thought there had to be a better way to stay dry on a bike. 

Patagonia Dirt Roamer Storm Jacket – Riding-specific fit

This jacket doesn’t look or fit like a standard raincoat because it’s been specifically tailored for the body position of a bike rider. The rear hem drops generously long, covering a lot of your backside while bent forward on a  bike. The shoulders and chest feel a bit baggy for the typical cut of a lightweight raincoat, but this space makes sense once you sit in the saddle – comfortably accommodating the braced-shoulder position required for gripping wide handlebars.

There’s also additional roominess built into the back that allow this jacket to fit over a small backpack or a lumbar pack without stretching the fabric tight. 

These accommodations for a mountain biker’s morphology result in a jacket that rides along easily over the body without restraining motion, even in the explosive, high joint-angle movements idiosyncratic to technical mountain biking.

A great hood for a helmet

The hood is huge and floppy for a reason – it’s designed to be worn over (and only over) a bike helmet! This seems like a small distinction, but if you’re looking for rain-proof protection longer than a dash back home across town (say, 25 miles of singletrack in dripping rain), the difference becomes apparent very quickly.

This hood not only fits over a high-volume bike helmet, but has ample slack in the neck so it articulates naturally as you move your head around, which is a must for trail riding. 

It’s hard to find a general-purpose raincoat with a hood large enough to fit over a helmet – it makes the hood too large for most people’s taste. Find a jacket with a hood large enough to fit and it’s usually just large enough, requiring a rigid, Frankenstein’s-monster performance to turn the head that requires the whole torso to turn as well, especially with the zipper synched up to the chin.

Anyone who’s ridden any real distance with a hood stretched tight over a helmet like this knows how annoying it is. Typically I’ve just let my helmet ride bare in the rain, resigned that my head, neck, and eventually chest will get soaked. The joy of this jacket is that you can wear the hood and carry on riding, simply enjoying being dry. 

Seal out rain with smart vents to dump heat

 This jacket will keep you about as dry as a jacket can for riding straight into rain. The zipper can be closed high up onto the chin, sealing off the neck. Hook-and-loop wrist cuffs are large for a light raincoat, more like what you typically find on a ski jacket, allowing one to efficiently seal off the wrists while wearing gloves (likely wet gloves). As mentioned, the rear hem drops low over the lumbar and the hood rides great over a helmet. 

I felt dry after wearing this jacket riding through several afternoon thunderstorms and the inevitable aftermath drizzle this summer. The jacket is made of Patagonia’s 3-way stretch H2No shell fabric, which bonds a slick, yet slightly stretchy outer shell to an inner liner that feels soft and a bit porous, a bit like a soft-shell. It definitely does not feel like the slick inside of a wet trash bag, which is my general experience after biking in general-purpose raincoats. 

H2No is a good membrane and keeps water out; what really allows this jacket to maintain a “dry enough” feeling after hours of aerobic output in the rain is the membrane combined with good ventilation. The vent affordances on this jacket are clever and odd – clearly the product of much thinking about the mechanics of riding a bike in the rain.

The chest zipper is ¾ length – likely to save weight – but is two-way. This seems crazy at first, since two-way zippers are typically only useful on a separating zipper, but this allows one to vent heat out of the chest while the jacket remains zipped up near the neck, keeping the jacket riding trim and tight.

Anyone who’s tried physical trail riding with an open jacket flopping all over their shoulders will appreciate that. Also, this jacket has side zips – NOT pit zips – further low and back than most people are used to. It seems to me that this configuration came from the insight that pit zips don’t actually work that well while gripping handlebars, and these side zips do a good job of opening a lot of surface area that isn’t directly in the line of fire of rain and splashes. Together, these vent options do a good job of letting one keep the jacket on while producing a lot of body heat. 

A raincoat is only worth anything if you have it with you. The 12 oz Dirt Roamer Storm jacket rolls up into a compact bundle, so you can tie it around your waist, stuff it in the bottom of a small backpack, or strap it to Patagonia’s Dirt Roamer waist pack for a no-brainer way to carry rain protection. These straps work really well; I’ve done several long rides carrying the jacket like this and it’s never loosened up.

Packable (and strap-able) 

At 12.1 oz (Men’s medium) this is a fairly light jacket. It has minimal bells and whistles – just the two-way ¾ length zipper, a hood with a single rear tension cord, and a pocket on the low back that can fit a phone. As such, it can fit just fine in a small backpack, especially if stuffed into its pocket.

I’ve also rolled it up and strapped it to the carry loops on my Patagonia Dirt Roamer Waist Pack, and shoved it into one of the water-bottle holders on that and other waist packs. There is also an option to roll it tidily so the bulk of the jacket is inside the hood, then simply tie it around the waist.

All these tactics work just fine. The biggest thing for me is that the jacket is light enough that I don’t have to hem and haw about bringing it along if there’s rain in the forecast, so it’s reliably with me if things start getting wet. 

Speaking of transitions, anorak-style jackets with a short front zipper typically don’t fit over bulky things like helmets, but this jacket does. Opening the side zips expands the chest just enough to make this easy to slip on quickly with a helmet still on, which makes for quick, easy transitions on the trail. 

Bottom Line

This is a great purpose-built rain jacket for a mountain bike enthusiast who is determined to ride in wet weather. Clothing can only do so much in keeping you dry on activities that stretch into multiple hours in the rain, but this jacket will keep you dry about as well as a jacket can while riding a bike.

The bike-specific fit means you can really enjoy riding in wet conditions (all things considered…), and it’s light enough to be carried as “thunderstorm insurance” in places where that happens. At $320 it is not cheap, and the huge hood and idiosyncratic fit won’t make this the best piece to wear around town or on a hike, so I’d think of this as a specialist’s tool – excelling in a narrow niche. I will be carrying this jacket when I attempt to through-bike the Colorado Trail next summer – it’s the best weather protection for backcountry trail riding that I’ve found.


Patagonia Men's Dirt Roamer Storm Mountain Bike Jacket

Drew Thayer