Not skin tight, but also not excessively baggy, Form Fit garments provide a sporting silhouette without being body hugging. If you normally fall halfway between two sizes we recommend taking the larger one.

Based on my experience, Gore Wear is being too conservative with its sizing recommendation, especially for the US market. Mine is simpler: Buy one size up. The C5 resists water well but does not create the immediate beads that roll off so readily on the R7s. My perception is that it breathes slightly less well than the R7s, and is comparatively warmer. In contrast to the Shakedry pieces, the C5 has a dry, non-waxy hand feel.

Gore R7 Gore-Tex Shakedry Hooded Trail Jacket

Sizes S-XXL (men’s), 8-16 (women’s) / Proflex waterproof fabric / taped seams / stretch hood with stiffened peak / YKK AquaGuard water-resistant front zip / Velcro adjustment on hood and cuffs.

Complete protection from the rain while maintaining breath-ability is a lofty goal: GORE-TEX SHAKEDRY™ achieves it. The membrane on the outside also repels water, without needing a DWR coating. So it’s permanently water-resistant, water beads off and – as its name says – it shakes dry when the rain stops. Normally I’m a slim fit Medium. Small tops fit me in the chest and shoulders, but the sleeves are too short. Standard size Mediums are oversized in the body.

Rab Kinetic Plus

This is where Gore-Tex ShakeDry comes in. This new version of Gore-Tex has been engineered for people who plan to move at a consistently high intensity; when it’s essential that the fabrics they’re wearing are lightweight, water and wind proof as well as capable of shifting hot air away from the body. Nearly four years ago we first heard about Shakedry, a new “permanently beading” waterproof/breathable membrane technology from Gore-Tex that eliminated the need for a DWR-treated face fabric and that purportedly wouldn’t wet-out. If true, that’d be a big deal, because it would solve one source of failure of modern rain shells.

Although most of us have heard about of Gore-Tex since we were kids, there’s a bit of clarification required for the Gore Wear brand, which was newly established in 2018. The company is the newest iteration of the original W. L. Gore & Associates, an American company founded in 1958 through development of its revolutionary Polytetrafluorethylen (PTFE) technology. For many years, this technology was sold and incorporated into other companies’ products and while this still happens, over the past several years Gore has also developed in-house manufacturing to create its own product line. The company focused first on two primary user groups – runners and cyclists – who had a shared need for waterproof protection that wouldn’t cause overheating or limit athletic performance.The cuffs are elasticated and don’t have any adjustment. The hem does have adjustment though and this is via a toggled drawcord at the hem.