Rapha Pro Team Gore-Tex Lightweight Rain Jacket review: It had an impossible act to follow, but it still fell short of my expectations

Autumn is here, and winter is looming ahead. This means I am yet again staring down the barrel of a lot of wet riding to curate my guide to the best waterproof cycling jackets. Since the PFAS ban came into effect, there’s been a bit of a sea change at the top of the performance tree, with Gore-Tex scrambling somewhat to adapt to the new regulations.

I’ve written recently about why waterproof jackets are getting worse, and that on the whole it doesn’t matter, as well as comparing old and new Gore-Tex products back to back, but Rapha’s latest race day offering is my first chance to see how the latest Gore-Tex tech stacks up against not only its forebears, but also a market full of fresh competition from the likes of Pertex and Polartech.

Over the weekend, I took the Rapha Pro Team Gore-Tex Lightweight Rain Jacket out in the dying remains of Hurricane Erin. There were heavy winds, heavier rain, and no mudguards to protect me either. Given how much trust I could place in Rapha’s old shells, the likes of the Pro Team Lightweight Gore-Tex Shakedry and the Pro Team Gore-Tex jackets, I went out, if not brimming with confidence, then at least not awash with trepidation.

Sadly, I came home a little wetter than I would have hoped. Yes, it was a hard test, but one I’d expect top-end products to deal with, and I’m afraid to say this latest jacket fell short of the mark.

• Waterproof fabrics explained: What are they and how do they work?

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Design and aesthetics

If you’ve worn a Rapha Pro Team shell jacket in the past, the fit will be familiar to you. It fits just like the old Shakedry and non-Shakedry ones did. I recommend going one size up from your usual jersey. I’m usually a small in Rapha jerseys and a medium fits me perfectly for riding in a racy position.

The sleeves are plenty long enough, with cuffs that are half-elasticated on the underside and with a larger stiff hemisphere on the upper side to protect the back of your hands. The cuffs are rather snug; you could fit gloves underneath them, but it’d be a stretch. Over the top isn’t recommended as water then just runs down your sleeves and pools in your gloves, but as someone who rarely uses gloves, that isn’t a problem for me.

Weight has been kept to an absolute minimum, with it allegedly weighing less than the equivalent Shakedry jacket from days of yore. Handily, I have both jackets and a set of scales, and my Shakedry came in at 125.7g, and this new one was fractionally heavier at 128.8g. In any case, both are feather-light shells and can pack down very small indeed.

The new one, however, doesn’t come with an inbuilt stuff sack, though I literally never used it on the Shakedry option, so it’s not something I miss. It’s perfectly capable of rolling up and living unobtrusively in a jersey pocket alongside a mini pump or a banana without causing any over-stuffing.

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Shakedry was a 2-layer fabric – the waterproof membrane sat outermost, with just a backing fabric added – whereas this latest Gore-Tex is a more traditional 3-layer setup, though to keep the weight competitive, the outer and inner fabrics forming the bread in the waterproof sandwich are extremely lightweight, ripstop Nylon. There’s a very slight stretch to it, but it’s quite a crinkly, rigid material, so getting the fit right is going to be key.

The rear of the lower hem is slightly elasticated, though not to a huge degree, and the tail isn’t overly dropped, so this isn’t a jacket that will do a great deal of good in terms of keeping your bottom dry. It did sit below the contents of my pockets, however, and personally I prefer a more cropped waterproof than anything longer when I’m riding hard.

Everything else is also pretty pared back. The collar is close-fitting but unlined, which is also my preference, so you don’t end up with saturated felt sitting on your neck. The zip is waterproof and protected by an extremely minimal storm flap, save for a larger, Velcro-backed tab near the top to keep it flat against the jacket. The storm flap is also cut away at the very bottom to allow easier access to the lower end of the double zipper, which nowadays is a must for any jacket worth its salt.

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Performance

Initially, things felt promising in this department. The new Rapha Pro Team Gore-Tex Lightweight jacket had that familiar protective, windproof feeling, but as you might have gathered in the intro, it did let me down after a protracted 4-hour ride in pretty heavy rain.

The fit is excellent, I’ll give it that, and the packability is up there with the old Shakedry and the likes of the Maap Atmos, but about two hours in it started to feel somewhat soggy, and when I arrived back home it was clear there had either been some water ingress through the fabric itself, or the DWR had failed to such an extent that my sweat was condensing inside as the jackets breathability failed.

Given the wetness was mostly on my front with little on the back, I suspect it must have been the former, though to be perfectly frank, I am not overjoyed about the quality of the DWR treatment either. While water initially beads off very happily with the old ‘run the arm under the tap’ test, the face fabric is easily wetted out by simply brushing one's hands over the sleeve while it is wet.

While I didn’t notice the main body feeling particularly saturated, the sleeves did feel like they’d stopped being water repellent around two hours into the ride, leaving the heavier, wet material to sit against my skin and feel quite cold.

This was, I’ll admit, about the heaviest rain I could reasonably expect someone sensible to go and ride in, combined with some fast descents into strong headwinds, so the force of the raindrops hitting the jacket is about as high as it’s possible to get. Even so, I’d expect a jacket with an RRP of just shy of £300 to fare better, and certainly to feel more protective.

No modern waterproof jacket will hold up to torrential rain forever, and eventually the DWR will give up, the face fabric will wet out, the breathability will drop, and you’ll feel sweaty inside. For jackets pitched at lower intensity riding, it’s slightly easier to forgive, but on a jacket from the Pro Team range, pitched at higher intensity riding, it didn’t quite meet my expectations from a breathability standpoint, even early in the ride, and felt quite sweaty on climbs. I will caveat this with the fact that my testing was at the higher end of the suggested temperature range, but I was only wearing a thin jersey and mesh base layer beneath, so I was hardly overdressed.

I like the cuffs, I like the hem, I like the aesthetics, and the quality of construction is clearly there, but for me, this is a waterproof jacket best kept for emergencies and not one to reach for if you’re committed to a hard winter of riding in the rain. I actually think it was outperformed by the Maap Atmos in terms of both protection and breathability, despite that jacket feeling more thin and flimsy.

Value

As with most things in the realm of cycling gear, prices have been creeping up and up. With an RRP of £295 or $450, it’s among the most expensive waterproof cycling jackets on the market, and given the performance I experienced, I am not sure it’s a particularly good buy.

There are things going for it, namely the low weight and packability, but while some bike products are possible to view from several angles to find the positives, I’m afraid waterproof jackets are quite a binary judgement. Did it keep me dry? No, so I can’t in good conscience recommend you part with quite such a large stack of cash to buy one.

If you need a lightweight packable rain shell, then I suggest you go for the cheaper Maap Atmos, or if you’re in the UK, then I really, wholeheartedly suggest you buy the old Pro Team Gore-Tex Rain Jacket while it is still available.

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Verdict 

I’m willing to give Rapha a bit of leeway because, in the past, it has put out some of my favourite bits of wet-weather riding gear. Sadly, this latest offering isn’t among them.

While the fit and finish are both excellent, and there is a strong, durable feel to the jacket despite such a low weight and packable form, it exhibited a dereliction of duty when the worst conditions arrived.

Yes, it is perhaps a hard bar to clear, but as prices go up, so do my expectations.

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