Polaris’s Venom Echelon is a close-fitting gilet made up with stretchy, soft shell fabric that provides good wind protection while a nice big stretchy mesh panel on the back keeps you from overheating.

The elasticated armholes and gripper hem make for a good fitting gilet.

Constructed with just one zip pocket on the back and accessed from the side, it proved to be tricky to use, especially on the move, this meant using my jersey cargo pockets underneath.

As a minimum a gilet like this needs to have one stuff pocket in which to place warmers or a shower proof jacket and thus increase the modular use of the gilet.