Alpinestars Andes V2 Drystar

Textile Jacket & Trousers review.

First impression, straight out of the box was the weight, I thought the jacket & jeans together were a bit heavy, but when compared to my 12-year-old Hein Gericke Jacket & Jeans, it’s is lighter.

First to go on was the jeans with the detachable liners in and attached braces.

At 36” waist and 32” leg, I thought the XL size snug at first but, again, no real difference to what they were replacing.

The zip is nice & chunky & did up without catching on the material, but I initially found the hook a bit fiddly. The press stud was fine though.

 

Jeans are a comfortable fit & 
come with braces (which I've 
removed here).

 

 

Next came the jacket, again with the liner attached. I was immediately struck by the zip doing up the wrong way around, with the zipper part on the right, instead of the traditional left for men’s jackets. This must be an Alpinestars thing as my Alpinestars leather jacket is the same. The jacket and jeans zip together with a full zip around the waist, which again, takes a little getting used to as it’s the opposite way around to my old Hein Gericke stuff.

What annoys me though is the Velcro. There’s Velcro down the front of the jacket to hold the flap that covers the zip and acts as further waterproofing, and Velcro on the cuffs to tighten them around your gloves. Here’s the thing, I was constantly velcroing the cuffs and the front of the jacket together when trying to do the zip up.

Once all done up though the jacket & jeans felt comfortable. I’d read reviews about the collar of the jacket catching on the underside of the helmet, but this didn’t happen to me, although I found the collar a little uncomfortable initially when wearing a Buff underneath.

On to my first ride and for this, I took the jeans braces and detachable liners out as it was a warm day. With my boots, gloves, Buff and helmet, I felt the jacket & trousers offered freedom of movement both on and off the bike. The jeans adjust with Velcro around the cuffs but seemed to work well with my boots, a 12-year-old pair of Alpinestars waterproof boots, and the jacket cuffs seemed to fit over my gloves and do up securely. There are adjustments on the jeans and jacket around the waist, so you can get a snug fit, and adjustment in two places on the arms, one Velcro strap and one popper, again, helping to keep the jacket snug. The armour in both jacket and jeans, while fit for purpose, was barely noticeable once wearing the kit, but I just wish Alpinestars included a back protector.

Covering only around 100 miles at a sedate pace, I was out for around 3 hours, stopping a few times for a little walk around. With the jacket open and in 20^oC, I didn’t feel uncomfortably warm. The only issue was velcroing my cuffs to the front of the jacket again.

There are air vents in both the jacket and jeans that can be unzipped and while unzipping the air vents in the jeans and the front of the jacket can be done whilst riding, there are red cloth tags attached to the zips, it’s a bit fiddly wearing gloves. It’s not impossible, but if you want to concentrate on not hitting anything, I would recommend stopping first. In any event, you cannot open the front vents fully wearing gloves due to the draw string system Alpinestars uses and you wouldn’t be able to open the rear vents anyway, without taking the jacket off first.

Collar hooked back exposes waterproof
 pocket. 

However, with all the vents full open, I went for a blast along my nearest bypass and I was impressed at how well they worked. There was good ventilation and cooling without jets of cold air blasting pinpoints of skin like there is if I open the vents in my Shark helmet.

Overall, and having worn the trousers for over 4 hours, three of which was riding, I can only really find three issues, the jacket front/cuff Velcro interchange, the zip being the opposite way around to what I’m used to and the fact that when walking around without the jacket on, I could have done with the braces to keep the jeans up.

 

A further 140 miles covered wearing the Alpinestars Andes V2 jacket & jeans and I'm impressed. This time in temperatures approaching 26^oC and again, with the vents open I felt comfortable, and while I was eager to remove the jacket when I stopped for a coffee, my T-shirt was not as damp as I expected.

There are a couple of things I'd like Alpinestars to sort out though, the cuffs on the jacket for one thing and it's not just velcroing the cuff to the front of the jacket weither, wearing my summer gloves, the cuffs barely open enough to slip over the cuff of the glove. a wider opening and the addition of a zip may fix that.

I haven’t managed to test the waterproofing yet, so can’t comment on the Drystar system, nor can I yet tell you what it’s like in cold weather. You may have to wait a few months for that, but I’ll be back to let you know.