A fellow MBer asked for my opinions on this jacket, so I sent the following "off the cuff" review to her. I thought some others might enjoy hearing a bit more about it as well. It's pretty much a cut/paste from my PM to her, so if there's any oddities that I missed, that's why.
To summarize: I highly recommend it. It's incredibly warm, windproof and waterproof. It's got lots of pockets and the zip-out liner is really comfy, I wear a T-shirt under it in 35ish weather and I'm fine. This is still with the pit vents open, if that tells you anything.
There are a few concerns that I have about the jacket, so in the spirit of full disclosure:
No reflective piping. This is something I’ll probably fix at a later date. No Back or chest armor: I’m not sure that those do too much in the first place, and comparatively speaking, the amount of padding should be close enough in density with the multiple layers to disperse a blow. This is partially based on a recent accident wearing my Alpinestars jacket with chest armor, back armor and hauling a passenger. The chest armor doesn't go down far enough to catch the handlebars on a scooter in a head-on collision. I didn't fall off the scooter, so I can't attest to the back armor other than speculation that it'd be better than nothing. The armor is a newer technology, but it seemed to work really well when demoed The hood portion is a little odd, it doesn’t detach and can act as a sail, I usually pull the drawstrings tight and tuck them in the neck to avoid them smacking the helmet in the wind. This stops the sail action for the most part. The buttons are tight, which makes fastening and unfastening difficult with gloves on, ultimately this is a good thing as over time they will stretch and end up perfect. If I don’t button the front flap, a little bit of wind seeps in through the zipper, so there’s no room for laziness when gearing up in the morning. 
And the big concern: It’s designed for scooter use. I don’t know how this translates to higher speeds. The material is abrasion resistant but to what degree, hopefully I’ll never know.Now that the negatives are out of the way, here are the positives:
It’s warm! I still use the pit vents in 35 degree “spirited” riding. I normally glance at the speedo and see 55+ (people speed here as the norm, I just keep abreast of them. The collar goes up High. It blocks a LOT of the wind that would seep into other jacket designs. There’s also 2 buttons there to really close it up good and tight. There are lots of pockets and they all zip up. The armor is incredibly unobtrusive. I did a few tests, which consisted of me elbowing a wall and it does dissipate blows really well while still retaining flexibility. It’s really neat stuff. I’ve been in a little rain with it and it beads up and rolls off. It’s kind of amazing. I haven’t ridden it in the rain; I was just wearing it out one day. It doesn’t look all crotch-rockety and can actually be worn out in public and pass as a semi-dress coat. For a Parka, and for its warmth, it’s relatively light, as in, not puffy. It allows a good amount of movement. It’s got storm cuffs that tuck conveniently under my leather gauntlets and block a lot of wind from going up the sleeves. It’s got an MP3 player pocket and some considerations for running ear buds up into your helmet, but I haven’t tried it out, I like the solitude of my exhaust and my thoughts. It covers my butt and keeps it from coming in contact with a wet and/or cold seat. When I take the liner out, I can ride comfortably in 75ish degree weather, with the vents open and it unzipped a little. And finally, it comes with a sample of the armor material that feels like silly putty (until you hit it with a hammer or some sort of sudden blow, where it solidifies instantly); it’s really neat stuff. And yes, it will copy the comics silly-putty style.All in all, I love it. It keeps me warm, it looks good and it’s got a 2 year warranty. Who knows, pretty soon I’ll probably have to zip up the pit vents.
If you’re OK with the concerns I listed first, then it’s a great jacket. Probably even better if traffic’s not nutso-crazy like it is here or if you tend to stick to 35 mph riding.
One last thing to note: It's sized large. I normally wear an Xlarge (my summer jacket is an XL Alpine stars and it's just barely tight around the shoulders, almost perfect) and the Armadillo is a roomy Large, with similar fit in the chest and shoulders, the armor ends up in the right places.
I'll try to snap some picks of particular points of interest (both negative and positive) and edit them into this post a little later on.
My wife's still eying the "Macintosh" women's parka and she doesn't even want to ride lately!
One other thing to note. When I was checking out the full lineup of Armadillo jackets, the "City-Rider" seemed to be more adjustable and had a removable hood. But it didn't cover as much of the body and the wind/water resistance was lower according to their own standards (still not sure the measurements that they use, it just works). The Parka was also only $10-$15 more, so I just went with the Parka. I don't regret it at all.
I'm more than willing to answer any questions on this gear as I'm a huge supporter of new and innovative ideas, especially when it comes to safety. Their armor material is just flat out neat! I am a gambler on new technology and inventions, so I'm willing to take that risk (I don't perceive it to be a huge risk, compared to more conventional foam armor, but it's still not as proven - time will tell). I don't want to mislead anyone. Their site shows it being tested and I don't think that they're misleading, but do understand that this is not conventional armor. It's tested, but it's still new. I'm fascinated by it and I'm comfortable with that decision, but any purchase in gear ultimately comes down to the rider's level of comfort with it. Just add that into your evaluation if you've considered trying or buying this gear. But do keep in mind this: It's warm. Very warm! I still haven't closed the pit vents or added any other layers between the liner and my T-shirt and it's gotten down to freezing in the mornings here.
Hope this helps. Stay warm, keep the rubber side down and enjoy your ride!
Update: Late Feb 09
Hey folks.
So, I've given the Parka a good cold run here (still anxiously waiting for spring) and I thought I'd update my original review.
Before I get to that, I wanted to just reiterate a point. I bought this jacket because I like innovation and I knowingly took a risk on a relatively untested product (at least as far as we're concerned here in the US).
OK, that aside...
So, after doing a little riding this winter I can say this above all else: This jacket is WARM. I've ridden to work in 19 degree weather with just a short sleeve shirt on underneath and no part of my body that is covered by this jacket got cold. Ever. In fact, the only thing that's kept me from riding to work all winter was my gloves. That's been remedied now, so I plan on scooting around straight on through till I need to start wearing my Alpinestars Mesh jacket again.
The main reason I bought this jacket was to stay warm and it did this in spades. I'm not a Sunday rider here... I ride fast and hard... not that I'm particularly bad-ass or anything. Around here, you kinda have to. When I'm driving my car, I'm that jerk that's doing the speed limit and obeying red lights and stop signs. The nerve, right? When I'm on my scooter, it's go fast or get hit. Sum of the story: my daily commute is about 60 (55 actual) mph for about 15-20 minutes. Plenty of time to get cold. This jacket does not let that happen. I've even ridden with the pit vents open around 45 degrees just to keep from over-heating. With that said, I should also point out that I've ridden in 70 degree weather with the liner still in and not felt too hot. The hottest was around 80, but I had the liner removed and the vents open and was actually really comfortable.
OK. That out of the way, onto the BAD!
The stitching on this thing is nothing short of pathetic. Actually, to clarify: The interior stitching sucks, sucks, sucks! When I turned it in for a warranty replacement (more on that later) 3 of the 4 pockets on the main shell had lost their stitching and were making me nervous of loosing stuff. Some of the stitching on the interior of the hood section was completely undone. A Button had popped off on the pocket flap. Threads were coming loose around a number of the interior portions of the jacket.
HOWEVER!! Every single stitch on the outside remained perfect. Not a single flaw (with the exception of a button coming off). The concern here is how it would handle in a slide. I think it would do just fine. Actually, of the people that bought the Armadillo Parkas from my local shop, 3 of them now were involved in accidents. All three were inspected by the shop afterwards and they looked brand new. I can't confirm this personally, but I trust the owner of my local shop very much. She takes care of her people. At least one of them was a healthy slide (10-20+ foot slide). That tells me that the outer shell was assembled in a different factory than the interior... there's a definitive difference from the outer shell and the interior of the jacket.
One of the other selling points of this jacket was the warranty. I knew that this was a new company (to the US) and that I was taking my chances, to a point. But, Scoot Richmond said they'd take care of me. Well, the reason I'm updating this today is that I just turned in my original jacket for a brand new one. It turns out that she (owner of Scoot Richmond) was able to get ahold of the Armadillo distributor for the US at the Indy Dealer Expo last weekend. She had some words for the fellow. It turns out that the first run of the US jackets had many of the same complaints: Interior stitching and zippers were not durable at all. He told her that she'd have a number of replacements this week (mine was one of them) and that this run had addressed a number of the issues that were the weak points of the first batch.
So, here we go with round 2. Brand new jacket; not a repair of the original one like they were first trying to tell her.
I'm going to keep on riding with it and I'll report back any major differences between this one and the original as well as how the "new" production run measures against the short comings of the first one.
On a final note, I want to just restate that I originally bought this jacket as a cold weather solution. It's got the muted looks that I'm favorable to and it's WARM. It's a heavy duty cold weather jacket that has added considerations (armor) for riding. I don't regret that decision at all (at least since they're honoring their warranty, hehe), as it's kept me plenty warm in crappy weather (water beads up on it!). They're holding their end of the bargain by delivering a satisfactory warranty replacement.
I'll make another post after I've got more time with it. Hopefully this one will be everything I thought the first one would be and more. On just a precursory inspection of the new jacket, it does look like they paid attention to the details a little better. No loose threads, tighter stitches, etc. I think they got it right... but time will tell. I guess I'll tell too once I've figured out if it's improved or just new.
Stay warm! Just a few more months till mesh!
