he design is stripped-back but not spartan, so while the cuffs are semi-elasticated and there’s just the one large-ish zipped chest pocket, the hem with a short drop-tail, is fully adjustable, and the hood is a cunning, semi-elasticated confection adjusted with a single cord-pull at the back of the head and complete with a stiffened and wired brim. More about that in a minute…

It’s also very nicely put together with neat touches like minimal seaming, stitching that’s tucked away to minimise abrasion damage and neat internal seam-taping. We like the ‘stealth’ chest pocket too. It certainly doesn’t look or feel like corner have been cut or quality skimped on.

The end result is a jacket that in a medium men’s version weighs a genuine 169g not including the 7g colour-matched mesh stuff-sac and looks great.

Top Hood

The other real stand-out feature of the Gravitas is the hood, which works brilliantly. It’s a snug-fitting design which has just a single adjustment pull-cord at the back of the head. Snug it up and the hood cord tightens on the crown of your head and moves with your direction of gaze.

It also has a small but excellent wired peak that sits over your eyes like a stiffened cap brim and does and excellent job of keeping rain and small animals out of your eyes… finally, the sides of the head-opening are elasticated, which means you can pull the hood on and off without needing to undo the main-zip at all.

It’s something we’re so accustomed to doing that for the first few hours, we found ourselves unzipping anyway, but once you get used to the Gravitas, you realise you can simply pull the hood on and off with minimal zip faff. Genius, particularly if you’re wearing gloves.

Initial Verdict

With Alpkit’s newly anointed clothing designer coming from Rab, it’s maybe not a coincidence that the jacket the Gravitas reminds us of most is that brand’s excellent Flashpoint. Like that jacket, the Gravitas is light without feeling flimsy, has good levels of breathability and waterproofing and has been nicely put together from an impressively light three-layer fabric and its hood is quietly brilliant.

And while Alpkit has focussed on the jacket’s running, cycling and adventure race capabilities, we reckon the longish, close, but not tight, cut and a cracking hood make it an excellent lightweight all-rounder for lightweight walkers and even climbers too.

In fact, for pure running or cycling, a shorter front and longer drop-tail, might well work better, but for general outdoors use, the current configuration is just fine and offers a little more welcome crotch protection too.

Finally, Alpkit’s direct sale business model means that the Gravitas is exceptionally good value for money. It’s not cheap, but you’re getting a lot of jacket for your money.

That’s the story so far. We’ll update once we’ve got some more hill time with the jacket.

Full Specification

• Three-layer lightweight fabric with PU membrane
• Semi-elasticated cuffs
• No visible stitching and narrow seam allowances
• Semi-elasticated hood with single-pull adjustment
• Stiffened and wired hood peak
• Full hem draw-cord with adjustment
• Single zipped chest-pocket
• Colour-coded stuff-sac included