Fort Worth Motorcycle Riders

As mentioned in the recent purchase thread, I picked up a cooling vest from Amazon for $250.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071W ... UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071W7R7L5?m= ... etail_page

Initial review...I love it. Just spent about 3 hours working in the garage, about 90 out there, and never even broke a sweat.

Rick asked about ice capacity, I'm not exactly sure but I dumped 4 very large cups of ice and it still had a little room to spare. The cooling effect lasted for about an hour an a half.

The backpack comes with a container to fill with water and freeze, wouldn't work well for a ride, in that you'd have a plastic bottle to carry around once the ice melts, but around the house not a problem. I'll test out how long the ice pack lasts Sunday when I mow the yard.

The vest is a bit loose on me, probably could of gone with a smaller size. But I put on a very tight fitting shirt on over it to hold it tight against my body and it worked rather well. If anyone thinks about getting one of these vest let me know and you can try mine on first. If it fits you well you can order the smaller size then swap with me when you get it.

One thing I was expecting, but makes sense, the vest gets wet from condensation of the cold water lines.

Rick, I'd like to get with you some time and compare the connectors and see if our equipment are compatible with each other. I was hoping it would be compatible with the cooling patch thing I got when I broke my collar bone but it's not.

*note: post edited to correct link. Both links should take you to the product page, the first link had some issues for some though.

The containers that you can freeze with ice - the upside is the cooling lasts a lot longer but it doesn't flow nearly as cold (less surface area to transfer energy vs cubed ice)

Do they make a set of pants?

Coolshirt.com does. They also have a "hat" that goes inside your helmet. Intended more for auto racing but might work for motorcycle helmets.

Wore the vest again to day while riding my bicycle. Used the ice pack this time. The pack melted quite a bit more than I expected, probably the back pack being in direct sun the whole time didn't help it much. The hard ice pack also was a bit uncomfortable, the corner of it was digging into my lower back. Might be able to fix that by adjusting the straps. Cooling wise though, it did well, and felt just as cold as when I was using ice cubes.

Is this it? https://www.amazon.com/Compcooler-Backp ... 01DLSBIB2/

Yep, although mine was 99 cents cheaper. ha! Did my link in the first post not work?

Ok, my link is weird, when I just clicked on it, it did not take me to the right page, but then when I clicked on it a second time it did.

Ok, used the ice pack today and it lasted about 2.5 hours while out mowing the yard this morning. Temps were only in the 80's so I'm sure that helped it last a little longer but I was very pleased. I didn't get nearly as hot and sweaty as I normally would have and once I was done mowing I left the vest on for a bit and brought my core temp down to a comfortable level quite quickly. So far this thing is worth the $250. Only test now, is well the equipment will hold up to use.

I volunteer to test it on my next twisty ride for you!

Great find Matt, that is a very nice price! The Veskimo wants almost that much ($20.00 less) just for the shirt/vest alone. With their backpack it increases by $887 to go over $1000. Veskimo has a nice vest and the
controller they sell is very good too, but their prices have just about doubled since I purchased mine back in '12. Even if they were the only game in town (and they obviously aren't), knowing what I know now,
I never would have purchased their cooler/pump unit, it's just too easy to make your own for 1/3 the cost at most. I made a nice one that holds 20 lbs of ice and a couple of Gatorade bottles for under $100.00.
Most of that cost was for a heavy duty commercial grade pump from Grainger Supply.

How's the quality of the backpack material?

Seems pretty good, no obvious failure points. I've only used half a dozen time or so, but so far I'm very pleased with it.