Burton AK Cyclic Jacket and Pants outerwear review
Years ago, in my poor ski bum era, I was a thrift store outerwear purchaser. I’d go to the thrift stores in and around Burlington, VT and find some second-hand or sample Burton gear and buy it all up. It fit great, worked great, and I got it for pennies on the dollar. For the past few years, I’ve switched up to more ski-related brands, and that’s fine, but I’ve always missed those Burton days. When we started dealing with Burton in our shops, I was very excited to get back into the game, this year picking up a set of Burton AK Cyclic outerwear, with matching jacket and pants. As is the case here at SkiEssentials, we’ll cover the Fit, Fabric, and Features of this suit.
I’m 6’2” tall and about 230 pounds. By and large, I fit in an XL jacket and pant with no issues. The Cyclic jacket fits like a dream. Long enough to be stylish, but not overly steezy, and with arms the proper length for both movement and layering. There’s plenty of room in the shoulders and through the midsection as this is one of the more comfortable shells I’ve used. It’s good that it’s roomy, because layering is essential. We’ll cover that more in Fabrics, but it’s no secret that there’s zero insulation in this coat. You need to wear at least a base and mid layer, and a heavier one on colder days. The fact that there’s enough room in the XL to handle this is awesome. The neck zone comes up high enough to easily be able to cover your face on the cold chairlift rides, and the hood is roomy enough to fit a helmet underneath with no issues at all.
The pants are a bit different of a story. I remember having a similar style of Burton pants back in the day, and they were a bit baggier and roomier. The Cyclic pants, on me, are a bit snug through the seat and thigh area. They’re a bit short in the cuff as well but fit well in the waist and lower leg. I do wish they fit as roomy as the coat, but I also don’t need to put many layers on my lower half because I usually run hot. Not to bump into fabrics again, but if the material was a bit stretchy, it’d make up for a lot of the snugness that I feel. I didn’t get to try the XXL on, but I bet it’d be a better fit. If you have larger quads or longer legs, I would at least recommend trying on the larger size. It does somewhat restrict movement but not to the point of failure. I’d add a few inches to the cuff, as well, to cover more boot.
In terms of fabric, both of these units are two layers of nylon with a Gore Tex membrane. They are certainly built for weather repellent more than insulation or freedom of movement. The lining consists of recycled soft tafetta, so there is a bit of a silence and composure to the inside of both the coat and the pants. That lining extends into the cuffs of the pants, allowing you to keep the snow out with the outer shell covering the boot. So far, this suit has thoroughly kept the elements at bay. Other than the cold. It’s a good thing that it’s windproof, but you do have to be strategic with your layering. There is no insulation in these shells, and that is an important aspect to selecting your outerwear. Normally I like a slightly insulated coat, but the fact that the Cyclic is roomy does allow for layers. I’m a simple guy, and if I can reduce a layer by having an insulated coat, I’m likely to go that route. Another small hangup is the fact that since the pants are “snowboard,” they don’t have the same reinforced cuffs. Snowboarders don’t need to deal with slicing and dicing the cuffs of their pants with the ski edges, so there��s no need to put cordura patches at the cuffs like we see in most ski pants. To reconcile, I plan on bringing the pants to a tailor to have the cuffs both extended and bolstered with cordura material.
In terms of features, both pants and jacket are loaded with pockets, vents, and all sorts of zippers. The main thing that I noticed about the pockets, for better or for worse, is that they are deep. The good news, for the pants, is that your keys or phone will not fall out of the pants pockets. That said, fishing them out when it is cold is a bit of a challenge. You can definitely fit a lot of stuff in the pants pockets. You also get a thigh pocket which I use to keep dry paper towels—a little trick I picked up over the years to keep goggles dry and free of ice. The chest pocket of the jacket is extremely useful, as we keep GoPro cameras in there almost all the time. It’s big enough to fit the camera and an adjustable pole or a mouth mount without hardly noticing. Interestingly, Burton uses a bicep pass pocket rather than a wrist one. It makes it slightly harder to show pass scanners where it’s at, but it actually makes sense if you’re on a snowboard and travelling sideways through the corral. It’s a small thing, but noticeable to me.
This set has a great combination of style, technical capacity, and fun features. Sure, there are some things I’d change, especially about the fit of the pants, but overall, it’s a quality kit from Burton that keeps both skiers and riders dry and ready for all-mountain conditions.
Burton AK and the cyclic kit are available now!