Nalini Nespolo jacket

This lightweight windproof packs down small enough to fit into a jersey pocket and makes a massive difference to your body temperature when you need to keep the cool air out.

The main fabric is a really skinny polyester that blocks the wind almost totally. It's actually made from recycled bottles, if you want to give your green credentials a bit of a boost. It's okay, they wash them first. The fabric has an 'anti-droplet' treatment. It's not waterproof but, for example, I've just got back from a ride where it drizzled on and off for a couple of minutes or so at a time, and I didn't get wet.

It's a fairly breathable fabric too and you get little mesh panels in the armpits for ventilation. To be honest, though, it's easy enough to just take the jacket off and sling it in a rear pocket as soon as you start getting too warm.

The Nespolo comes in a racing cut so it fits close to the body without too much flapping when you head downhill. It's not a stretchy fabric though, which might be worth bearing in mind if you fancy using this year-round and want to fit an extra layer underneath in the colder weather. Being Italian, the sizing is pretty small so you'll probably want to go up a size anyway; I usually take a medium or large, but the XL fitted me fine. The UK distributor, Chicken Cycles, have a size chart you can check.

The collar is high and both the waist and the cuffs are elasticated to stop any breezes getting in. There's a flap over the high-quality YKK front zip too that prevents the wind whistling through there.

The only other feature to note is the zipped pocket in the lower back that's big enough for a spare tube, mini pump and so on. It comes with an easy-to-grab puller and doubles up as a house for the jacket itself. Packed down it measures - where's the road.cc ruler? - 13cm x 16cm x 5cm. And that's not tightly packed. Fold it in half and it goes in any jersey pocket easy peasy.

The classic use for a top like this is for riding in the mountains. Head to the Alps, Pyrenees or Dolomites in the summer and you boil as you're working hard on the climbs, then get chilled to the bone as the wind whistles through your damp clothing on a 20-minute descent.

You don't have to be heading to the Continent for a jacket like this to come in useful though. It's just as useful in changeable British weather especially if, like me, you're cold blooded and can't function properly when the sun goes behind a cloud.

The only problem is the price. Granted, this is a good example of the lightweight windproof genre. Good fabric, good zip and all the rest of it. But 100 quid? That's too much for the likes of me.

Verdict

High quality, very effective lightweight windproof... but you can get almost as good much cheaper