{"id":188770,"date":"2025-03-03T14:38:59","date_gmt":"2025-03-03T14:38:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cyclist.co.uk\/?post_type=review&p=188770"},"modified":"2025-03-03T14:39:30","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T14:39:30","slug":"castelli-gabba-r-jacket-review","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/www.cyclist.co.uk\/reviews\/castelli-gabba-r-jacket-review","title":{"rendered":"Castelli Gabba R jacket review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There are few more game-changing pieces of kit<\/a> \u2013 in my lifetime at least \u2013 than the Castelli Gabba, one so good at what it does that its release in 2011 saw non-Castelli-sponsored pros buying their own and Sharpie-ing out the logo. It was, and still is, a tremendous piece of kit. Six generations on and this is the most radically different Gabba yet: the Gabba R.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The headline here is speed. The old Gabba was developed for the Cerv\u00e9lo Test Team as a faster alternative to the traditional flappy rain jackets, but with the Gabba R Castelli claims to have pushed that envelope to a new level.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a Castelli-authored white paper detailing wind-tunnel and real-world tests, the Gabba R is said to be around 2-3% faster than its predecessor, the Gabba RoS<\/a>, 3-5% faster than a traditional rain jacket and 1% faster than the Castelli Sanremo BTW \u2013 notable given the Sanremo is a purpose-built speedsuit (NB this is in a regular road riding position, in an aero tuck the Sanremo is 1% faster than the Gabba R).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

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Joseph Branston <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Key is a new material from Italian fabric specialist ITTTAI, specifically the shiny, silvery parts of the Gabba, which Castelli says \u2018combines stretch-fit functionality with unparalleled water resistance and breathability\u2019. In other words, Castelli has been able to make a faster Gabba because it has found an acceptably weather-resistant fabric that\u2019s more stretchy than the Gore-Tex fabrics of Gabbas past. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As such, the Gabba R has a skin-tight fit and a waterproof <\/a>rating of 5,000mm. For context, classic waterproof Gore-Tex is rated at 28,000mm and the number refers to the height a column of water can be when stood on a given material before water leaks through.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a rule of thumb, anything over 20,000mm is what you might call \u2018properly waterproof\u2019, 10,000-20,000mm will cope with light rain and less than 10,000mm is for showers or drizzle. That makes the Gabba\u2019s 5,000mm water-resistant not waterproof<\/em>, but to my mind that\u2019s no problem \u2013 the Gabba\u2019s deliberate trade-off has forever been to keep riders warm as opposed to dry. Like a wetsuit, getting wet is fine so long as you don\u2019t get cold. Yet it\u2019s because of this that the Gabba R and I start to part ways. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Castelli Gabba R: Cold realisations <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Joseph Branston <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Gabba R is impressively waterproof given its low rating, water beading up gratifyingly on its surface, and it\u2019s much more packable than before, squashing down into a ball the size of an orange. But it\u2019s not warm. Its material is very thin, a few steps up from regular Lycra, albeit with large parts \u2013 the silvery parts \u2013 coated in a kind of waterproofing rubber, or as Castelli puts it, \u2018electro-spun hydrophilic polyurethane\u2019 (this is a process where jets of liquid polymer are sprayed onto a fabric). Its skin-tight fit makes it aero, but doesn\u2019t leave much room for air or moisture to be trapped and warm into an insulating layer.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feelings of warm or cold are personal and are both temperature and intensity-dependent, but for context my recent riding has been sub 10\u00b0C and I found I needed to wear a substantial long-sleeve base layer <\/a>underneath unless I was going really hard. Decent hills on a cold day and the Gabba R was fine, but going for a moderate spin left me feeling the chill.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is something I haven\u2019t come across with older Gabbas, where a short-sleeve base layer would do, but herein lies the rub: Castelli has made the Gabba R for a much more \u2018pro\u2019 kind of rider than before, and I\u2019m just not that rider. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Joseph Branston <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That rider races and he or she stays warm because they ride hard. They aren\u2019t really worried about getting uncomfortable on the bike within reason, because they\u2019re not paid to be comfortable. But they are worried about how fast they go, at all times<\/em>. And as a side note, they are also really trim in the cyclist mode \u2013 I\u2019m normally a medium, I sized up to a large and I still had that feeling of being \u2018poured in\u2019 to the Gabba R. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given this, in one sense I can\u2019t knock the Gabba R, but in another I think it\u2019s a shame that its design so unashamedly ostracises a certain type of rider, the type I think most of us actually are and which older Gabbas served so well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, you can still buy the older Gabba RoS (warmer, less aero), so seen as a special spin-off racing jacket, the Gabba R is very good indeed. So maybe that\u2019s how I\u2019ll leave it: the Gabba R is brilliant at serving its rarefied audience, but as for me, I\u2019ll stick to my old Gabba, thanks. It\u2019s exceptional too.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Castelli Gabba R: spec <\/h2>\n\n\n\n