Mountain Hardwear Transition Tights
October 16, 2008
You know, I’m not sure I would choose to call these “tights”. These are more like armor for your legs. Stiffer and less stretchy than the word “tights” implies, the Transition tights are nonetheless a formidable opponent for precipitation and cold. I first tested them on a 50 mile bike ride up and over a mountain pass in August. Here in Alaska, that means freezing temperatures first thing in the morning. I thought the Transition tights would be just the thing to get me through the first few hours of sub-freezing temps and wet/frozen vegetation. And they really did keep me dry and warm, no question there. The seemingly impervious outer layer brushes off water and breathes well, as long as you accept that they are meant for cold weather. They were much too warm for exertion in temperatures above 40 degrees F. Cold they like and cold is what they are meant for.
What they’re not meant for is any activity that involves the full range of motion of your lower body (and you can just let your imagination run wild about whatever activity I may be referring to). Even getting on the bike was a little bit of a struggle, as the Transition tights just do not have the give that my trusty spandex bike shorts provide. Once on the bike, things were fine, but swinging the leg over was always a little tricky. The Transitions gave me a pretty normal range of motion for running and biking, but for anything else beyond the standard running/walking/pedaling motion, they were a little too supportive, if you know what I’m sayin’. They’re like that friend you have who is 100% behind any bonehead decision you make: “Sure, he’s got an ankle monitor because he’s just out of prison for conspiracy to defraud, evading arrest, assaulting a police officer, and writing over $25,000 in bad checks, but that’s no reason to rule out a second date!” (And that is a true story.) Despite their best intentions, they will wind up holding you back in the end. So if you do something dumb and your friends don’t call you out on it, consider getting new friends. A good test is whether or not they will let you out of the house with jeans so tight they’re giving you a “muffin-top”. Word to the wise: a friend who will let you appear in public with a muffin top is not your friend at all.
So the Transition tights were a little, er, binding sometimes. They also have a rather bizarre waistband, which doesn’t stretch much nor have much body-hugging capability. I tried two pairs of sample Transition tights, both in my regular size and one size up, and both pairs tore along the waistband seams because the waist wasn’t big enough to expand over my not-really-big butt without tearing. Nice. Way to give a girl a complex while putting on skin-tight pants. But really, I am not a large person and a pair of normal-size tights should be able to fit over my butt without ripping the waistband. And to add insult to injury, the waistband doesn’t have enough stretch to hug close to my waist – I had to tie it tight to keep it from flapping away from my back and showing everyone my base layer. This issue seemed to be a combination of cut/styling and fabric – the Transition fabric is just not giving enough to act as a decent waistband without a zipper. It’s bound to be too tight to get over the hips and not tight enough to fit the waist. As a matter of fact, I’ll go so far as to recommend that MHW install a side zipper on these tights, at least in the women’s version – they’d fit better and putting them on wouldn’t be so fraught with emotional upheaval.
Even with the seams kind of busted, the tights seemed to hold up reasonably well to other types of abuse, but I’d bet that they’ll need some reinforcing along those seams if they’re going to last another season. Now that the weather is getting crisper, the Transitions are back in my rotation, torn seams and all. The fabric is really great and has an incredible comfort range temperature-wise, so if MHW can dial in the fit they’ll have another winner with the Transition tights.
