Breathability
If we didn’t care about the breathability of a waterproof shell, everyone could just wear a tailored trash bag on the trail and call it good. But anyone who has tried that knows that you’ll you end up just as wet as if you were running around in the rain – your perspiration has nowhere to go, so you end up getting literally soaked in sweat.
In terms of breathability, the Team Chute’s 10,000 g/m2 rating is quite a bit lower than a high-end, 3-layer shell made with a membrane like Polartec’s NeoShell or Gore-Tex’s new Pro membrane, but I found it acceptable and sufficient for most of the riding I’ve done in the jacket, especially given its price.
The Hood
The hood is my one gripe about this jacket, though it’s a complaint I have about every hood of every jacket I’ve used for riding: helmet compatibility.
The Team Chute has a nice hood with a little brim on it, and it has an assortment of drawstrings to cinch it down snugly around your head. In this respect, the hood is on par with most other high-end jackets I’ve worn. But another similarity it shares with the other rain jackets and shells I’ve used is that the Team Chute’s hood won’t fit over a full-face helmet. It just barely fits over a standard trail helmet, but feels restricting and uncomfortable.
In my experience, if a hood is big enough to fit over a helmet comfortably, it ends up being too loose and either obscures my vision while riding, or it won’t stay put and flaps around behind like a parachute. And to make matters worse, I usually wear a neck brace when riding lifts, but the Team Chute’s hood (and that of any other jacket i’ve used) will get in the way of it, and on a cold, wet day, the jacket wins out over the neck brace.
Again, and to be clear, this dilemma isn’t unique to the Team Chute; lots of jackets in this class have hoods, so clearly someone out there likes them. But I’ve yet to find a hood that works for me. So for me personally, I’d really just rather have a jacket that doesn’t have a hood.
Price
In terms of ratings and numbers, the Team Chute isn’t the most waterproof jacket out there, and it isn’t the most breathable jacket out there. But in terms of real-world use, it kept me perfectly dry and was sufficiently breathable for all the riding we just did in Whistler. And, quite importantly, it costs less than $200, which is less than half the price of a nice ski shell.
And at the same time, the Team Chute is made with a shell material that is thicker and, as far as I can tell, seems more durable than the ~$100 rain jackets I’ve used in the past, while the jacket isn’t that much more expensive. So even if I do happen to take a hard crash and rip it, or when the waterproofing starts to wear off as a result of being perpetually hammered on muddy rides, I don’t have to kick myself for ruining a super expensive jacket, and it’s not going to cost a fortune to replace, either.
Color
In case the name (“safety yellow”) was an insufficient indicator that this jacket is really bright, let me say this: it’s really, really bright. If you’re looking for something a bit more low key, the Team Chute also comes in black.
Bottom Line
I really like the Race Face Team Chute jacket. It’s waterproof enough to comfortably ride in extremely wet conditions; it’s breathable enough that you can pedal in it without sweating off 20% of your body mass; it’s burly enough that I don’t feel like it’s going to rip every time I touch the ground; and it’s priced appropriately for an article of clothing that’s going to get thrashed around and dragged through the mud.