EVS CTR Cooling Vest Review – Dirt Rider Magazine

Do me a quick favor and look outside your window. Is there snow on the ground? I’ll bet there is. And if not, that just means you live in Southern California
where there are no seasons. My point is that I’m well aware of the fact that February is not the best issue to be telling you about how well EVS’ new CTR
Cooling Vest works. But bear with me, because this thing is really cool, and not just in the surfer sense of the word. You can skip ahead to a warmer test if
you’d like, but you’ll be kicking yourself next summer when you’re dragging your butt around the track sweating like a flagger at Loretta Lynn’s Dude Ranch.CTR stands for “Core Temperature Regulator,” which is a fancy way of describing the equally fancy absorbent polymer material in key areas of the vest, which
work to keep your core temp down during scorching motos. This is achieved by soaking the vest—which is really more of a sleeveless undershirt—in ice-cold
water before use, so that it disperses said cold water on your body throughout a moto.Simply dipping the CTR vest in cool water will do the trick, though I preferred to let it soak while I was getting the rest of my gear together (roughly 10
minutes) for maximum saturation. The absorbency of the material is apparent when you first slip the vest on over your skin, as evidenced by a series of
grunts, shrieks and shivers that occur when the ice-cold water hits your neck, back and sides. The absorbent panels are located on the shoulders and sides,
and they do an excellent job of holding water in without feeling too weighted or drippy. Similarly, the chest and back panels are soft and breathable, making
the CTR a great base layer when worn under a jersey, under protector or roost deflector.For shorter motos, the CTR vest does everything that EVS claims in terms of keeping the rider cool, and I absolutely agree this product can help you keep
heat exhaustion and fatigue at bay by regulating your temp. The only issue I had was that on rides longer than approximately 25 minutes in 100-plus-degree
heat, my super-heated core warmed up the remaining moisture in the CTR vest so that I was just wearing a really wet, double-thick (in spots) undershirt. In
other words, the product works great so long as the water-soaked polymer remains cool, but once your body heats this up, the effectiveness of the vest is
greatly reduced.Nevertheless, the construction and durability of the CTR vest are excellent, and it never failed to clean right up when washed with the rest of my gear. At $45, the price is reasonable for the performance you get during normal-length motos. —Chris Denison

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