Gorewear CONCURVE LE4 GORE-TEX Jacket

Review by Erin Trail

The Gorewear CONCURVE LE4 GORE-TEX Jacket is a lightweight rain jacket for all of your adventures.

Features:

• New GORE-TEX ePE membrane
• Durable, waterproof, and windproof protection
• Innovative body mapping for second skin-like freedom of movement
• Adjustable hood with elastic trim for secure fit
• Stand up collar
• Two hand pockets with zippers
• Adjustable hem
• Taped seams
• Reflective details for visibility

Detailed Review

I’ve been looking for a lightweight, packable rain jacket for my running and cycling adventures.  The jacket weighs 6.2 oz, which is definitely on the light side of rain jackets, but it also offers a bunch of features that many lightweight rain jackets don’t have.

Testing conditions:

• Rainy hill interval run
• Rainy long easy run
• Long MTB ride with hail/grauple/rain

I love the Gorewear CONCURVE LE4 GORE-TEX Jacket because of it’s versatility.  It’s intended for running, but you really could wear it for nearly any activity.  The hood fits closely to your head, for a more run-focused use case.  But while I was mountain biking, I put the hood on my head and then put the helmet on afterwards (with the jacket hood under the helmet) and everything fit and felt fine.

I’m between a small and medium for Gorewear upper body pieces.  Since I intended this for a wide range of activities, I ordered a size medium to allow room for a few layers.  The Gorewear CONCURVE LE4 GORE-TEX Jacket doesn’t have any insulation, so if you’re out in the elements and need to stay warm, definitely wear a mid-layer.

A feature I wish the jacket had was the ability to roll up into a pocket and form a nice, compact, zipped up item.  It just helps to keep the jacket tidy and easy to stash.  The jacket does easily roll up (and you could squish it down with a rubber band).  I had no issues fitting it into a smaller running vest or a larger MTB hydration pack.

I LOVE that this jacket has hand pockets, especially given how lightweight it is.  The pockets zip up and have a comfortable side entry.  They also have waterproof flaps covering the zippers, meaning that the contents inside will remain dry.

The hood is adjustable with a compression cord, located at the back of the head.  One feature that took me a while to figure out was the hood magnet system. The jacket has a circular magnet along the spine and also and in the hood, so when they find each other, the magnet keeps the hood from bouncing around. It’s an unexpected, but also really nice feature, that helps to elevate the jacket from a typical basic design.

The sleeves of the Gorewear CONCURVE LE4 GORE-TEX Jacket are fitted at the wrist. There’s elastic on the inner wrist, which easily stretches way if you need to take a peek at your watch as you run.

And finally, but most importantly, the jacket features GORE-TEX ePE membrane, which offers durable, waterproof, and windproof protection.

Performance

I’m the kind of athlete that always has to have a pack for hydration and to carry a few necessities.  I wear a vest for running and a hydration pack for mountain biking. The Gorewear CONCURVE LE4 GORE-TEX Jacket fits well under both of those pieces of gear.

Water nicely beads up on the jacket surface and runs off.  But I did notice as I wore the jacket a few times, the beading stopped where my pack had rubbed against the jacket, and water had absorbed into the fabric’s exterior.  I’m happy to report that I haven’t had any water seep into the jacket, so I think the beading is just cosmetic and that the jacket will perform even when that doesn’t happen.

The Gorewear CONCURVE LE4 GORE-TEX Jacket breathes really well. My hill repeat run was a great test, as I was working hard, then cooling off, then working hard again.  I didn’t have much moisture build up on the inside of the jacket and I never felt clammy. As a bonus, the zipper is a double-zip, meaning you can unzip it from both the top and the bottom of the jacket.  When I got warm, I would just unzip the bottom of the jacket a bit to increase airflow and my temperature was great.  Allowing the bottom of the jacket to unzip (versus only unzipping at the top) has the additional benefit of keeping the rain away from your torso.

The big test of the jacket was a MTB adventure ride, where we encountered hail, graupel, and rain for an hour straight. I was wearing a lighter windbreaker when it started to hail; the windbreaker was insufficient for those weather conditions.  I stopped under a tree to swap jackets and  changed into the Gorewear CONCURVE LE4 GORE-TEX Jacket.  The jacket fabric has just enough heft to help deflect the impact of hail (the hail hurt MUCH less with this jacket on versus a very light windbreaker).  The hood fit nicely under my MTB helmet and the front zipper hit just under my chin, giving me perfect coverage. It was very wet riding and I was really curious to see if my long sleeve sunshirt had any visible water marks from rain seeping in (or from sweat).  The only wet area the lower 3 inches of each sleeve (near my wrist).  I had on full finger MTB gloves that likely touched the sunshirt, and the moisture probably wicked up the shirt from the gloves. The rest of my upper body was completely dry. (I wish I could say the same for the rest of my body).

As we rode along in the terrible weather, I could definitely feel a difference in how my upper body felt versus my legs (my pants, unfortunately, we not waterproof).  Air temperatures were 37 degrees and I only had a light sunshirt beneath the Gorewear CONCURVE LE4 GORE-TEX Jacket.  My upper body felt protected from the elements and warm “enough” (my hands, feet, and legs were soggy and frozen).

Closing Thoughts

The Gorewear CONCURVE LE4 GORE-TEX Jacket is a lightweight rain jacket that’s more than capable and offers a lot of bonus features that other lightweight jackets don’t have.  At 6.2 oz, it’s an easy decision to stow the jacket into your pack, just so you have it with you should the weather turn nasty. The jacket is available in both men’s and women’s sizes and a wide range of colors.

Erin Trail