River Road Scout Leather Jacket - 2013

These jackets are sold by chest size. Choose the size that corresponds with your chest measurement (or suit coat size if you know it). We tried these jackets on our test subjects and got a great fit. The overall cut of these jackets is only slightly tapered so waist/belly size shouldn’t be a concern for most. We’ve listed some estimated max belly sizes in the chart below to help with that. If you have a bit of a belly, then just make sure that your belly size does not exceed the max belly size of the jacket you are choosing.

Need help measuring? Get it here.

The Scout jacket has been around for years in the FirstGear line. We closed out the last of the FirstGear Scouts last year and another version has not appeared in their product line (as of this writing anyway). The same distributor owns both the FirstGear brand and the River Road brand, so apparently what they’ve decided to do is shift the Scout style over to River Road. The Scout has always been more of a touring/cruiser type jacket and River Road is more targeted to that market than FirstGear, so it makes sense to me. I only hope that those in the market for a Scout will make the connection and find this one! As far as overall quality, River Road has always been a “mid-priced” product and FirstGear has been one or two notches above that. This Scout jacket has an identical feature list to the FG Scout, but the price and also the overall quality is a bit less. That is not to say it isn’t perfectly acceptable to people at this new price point, but I thought it was worth a mention in case a past Scout buyer chooses one of these… they’ll know what to expect. As I mentioned, the Scout is about long distances and a great leather style. This jacket has tons of pockets for storing all your little do-dads. The front chest zippers do double duty. They can be opened to expose two of these storage areas, but also they can be left open for venting. With the zippers down, you can re-position the leather over the pocket area to expose a vertical strip of perforated leather which will allow some pretty good airflow. We’ve got some pretty good close-up pics of this you can see by taking the “images” link above. Also, you’ll see a sleeve zipper that does double duty as well. It closes down the sleeve cuff of course, but also becomes a zippered vent. And then there are rear zippered vents as well. For colder weather, you can use the jacket’s full sleeve thermal liner and that liner also includes a removable neck warmer thingy. One other premium feature worth a mention is the two way front zipper. With the jacket zipped up, you can raise the lower zipper pull to give yourself some extra room across the waist/lap, which can be welcome when sitting for a long time. Raising that zipper allows the jacket to drape over your lap better and not bunch up on your chest. Overall, this is a very nice style and it is offered at a price point that would be near half of the asking price of the FirstGear Scout (if it were available). :: Paul, 03-15-13