As you’ve might’ve noticed, we’ve been bouncing back and forth between Jettribe and Slippery reviews lately. Both companies were very giving with supplying The Watercraft Journal with riding gear for this past year and we had a blast trying out all of the goodies we were given.
It bears prefacing that we picked up a pair of Jettribe’s RS-16 Abram shorts with the sole intent of wearing them over a wetsuit. We got in the habit of wearing shorts after our first Mark Hahn Memorial 300 in 2008, and have been doing so since then. You might feel the need to do so, and that’s perfectly OK, but we felt it necessary to explain before getting into this review.
The RS-16 Abram shorts are made out of the same heavy duty nylon material Jettribe uses for several products including the brand’s tour coats, riding pants, gear bags and even jet ski covers. The proprietary material is UV resistant meaning it won’t bleach or fade in the sun and is water repellant, which is great as you won’t be weighed down with sopping wet material.
Like the PWC covers and tour coats, the Abram shorts are held together with extremely durable contrasting stitching, and feature a laced-together waistband and Velco fly. And because it’s Jettribe, the shorts include great little convenient features like a rubberized lanyard loop and a pair of large Velco-sealed side pockets.
The problem with the heavy duty material is that the shorts just aren’t very giving. Flexibility is almost nil and we found that no matter how tight we cinched the laces, the shorts would slide off when crouching low or riding aggressively. Also, we found ourselves catching ourselves on the large rubber logos stitched onto each leg.
