SCOTT XT Flex Dryo Jacket and Pant Review

Imagine for a second that you had to do a crossfit workout in your snowmobiling gear. Can you picture how difficult that would be? Well, the SCOTT XT Flex Dryo gear could be the only outerwear in which you might actually be able to pull off those star jumps. It’s super stretchy!

When you stop to think about it, mountain riding is not that far different from a good workout routine—you’re bouncing around, jumping back and forth and bending in all sorts of unnatural ways. The last thing you want is to feel restricted by your outerwear.

The biggest benefit of the XT Flex Dryo snowmobiling outerwear is definitely the stretchy-ness, and it’s pretty amazing actually how much the material does actually stretch and move with your body, while staying waterproof.

Here’s our SCOTT XT Flex Dryo Jacket and Pant review.

PROS
• Super stretchy material
• Comfortable, athletic fit
• Jacket has big pockets
• Good venting
• Excellent wrist and leg gaiters

CONS
• No option to remove hood
• Small pants pockets openings
• Magnetic closure on front torso of jacket

Before we dive deeper into our impressions of the SCOTT XT Flex Dryo Jacket and Pant, let’s go over the specs. Here’s a quick summary of the key features of the jacket and pant, as listed on SCOTT’s website:

• Stretch 2-layer DRYOsphere membrane
• Shell construction
• Stretch mesh lining
• YKK Aquaguard Zippers
• Glove-friendly zips
• Jacket-specific
  • Snow cuffs
  • Insulated mobile pocket
  • Snow skirt
• Pant-specific
  • Snow gaiters
  • Leg vents

Before getting into the specific features of the outerwear and how they actually perform, let’s get the material techno mumbo jumbo out of the way first. The SCOTT XT Flex Dry Pull-over Jacket and Pant both use a 2-layer full stretch outershell and a stretch mesh inner lining. The shell uses a combination of 84% polyamide and 16% elastane (spandex, basically) to achieve its easy stretch properties.

The stretchy material is placed strategically throughout the garment, where it is needed most—areas like the crotch and shoulders/armpits areas. In other places where stretchiness isn’t required (such as the shins area), a less stretchy, more traditional material mix is used.

In order to maintain waterproofness, the shell (like all waterproof outerwear in the world) is treated with a durable water-resistant treatment (DWR). The seams are fully taped.

How waterproof, you ask? The XT Flex Dryo gear is rated at 15,000 mm waterproofness and 10,000 g/m2/24h breathability. Translated from geek speak, that means the XT Flex Dryo stuff lands about in the middle of the snowmobile outerwear waterproofness spectrum—based on those specs, that’s good enough for most conditions, but you might eventually get a damp ass when it’s really soggy out there all day. We didn’t personally experience any wetness coming though in our spring test rides, but we also didn’t have the opportunity to try the gear out on any really nasty days.

Given the amount of stretch in the material, it’s actually kind of surprising that it can be waterproof at all…that is some kind of magic!

Okay, moving forward, let’s break a few categories down by garment: pant and jacket. Keep in mind that you can buy just the top or the bottom separately if you want, but since we tested both we’ve simply compiled the details of each into one review for easier consumption.

Pant

Although they actually are a bib in our minds, SCOTT calls them a pant so we will too.

SCOTT describes the cut of this pant as a “regular” fit, but we would suggest they are a bit more fitted than that. It’s more like an athletic cut, which is great for riding. The good news for the bigger guys is because of the aforementioned stretchiness, they don’t feel restrictive at all as a result of the tailored fit, so you kind of get the best of both worlds—a streamlined fit that isn’t baggy and excessive, but still allows unrestricted mobility.

They fit true to size, and are long enough in the inseam for the tall guys (size large fits guys up to 190 cm/6’4” tall at the upper end).

The bib portion of the pants is also quite fitted. Be forewarned—guys with beer bellies might need to size up or get accustomed to a snug feeling through the lower torso area. Fortunately, that stretchy material comes to the rescue here once again.

So in summary of the fit, the XT Flex Dryo Pant fits true to size, with an athletic cut. If you have absolutely monster thighs or a big gut, you might want to consider going up a size.

Jacket

As for the jacket, it fits a little looser. There is room through the torso to accommodate the spectrum of body shapes, and the arms are long enough for all but the most gorilla-esque homo sapiens. The hood is plenty tall enough that you won’t feel like your neck is being compressed when you put it up.

Pant

The upper bib has a small pocket that will fit your mobile phone, as long as it’s not one of those ‘Plus’ sized units.

There are two hand pockets at the hips. The zippers are small and the pocket material is flat here, so they aren’t easily usable when you’re wearing gloves. It’s much easier to fit a hand in with no glove on. These are soft and fleece-lined—good for warming up your cold digits or holding small items like your phone or keys.

There is one other larger cargo pocket on the left side thigh. This uses a flap with a magnetic closure, which is pretty neat and works well to keep snow off the zipper. There’s a zip underneath the flap, and this pocket is much easier to access with gloves on than the two at the hips.

Jacket

The jacket, since it is a pullover style, doesn’t use any inside pockets but it does benefit from some big pockets across the front that you just can’t get on a jacket with a full front zip.

The first is a huge, kangaroo style pouch with a zipper and a magnetic snow flap. The magnetic flap closure is a neat idea and it works really well, but we did have concerns about the possibility of the magnet causing interference with our avalanche transceiver, since it is fairly close in proximity. The possibility of a potential issue here is enough to be a little unsettling, and although the magnetic closure works great, we hope that SCOTT moves away from its use this close to where most backcountry riders place their transceivers.

Beneath the kangaroo pouch is another large pocket that can be accessed from vertical zippers on both sides. This pocket feels perhaps a little redundant, but it does have a fleece lining on the inside, making it a nice spot to warm your hands. The vertical zippers open the door to the possibility of having objects in the pocket fall out the side, but this can be avoided either by using the kangaroo pocket instead, or just not opening the zippers all the way to the bottom.

Inside the second front pocket is a dedicated phone pocket and a permanently attached goggle wipe. The goggle wipe is so handy; all snowmobiling jackets should offer this feature.

Pant

The pant features a 20 cm/8 inch long vent on each thigh. They aren’t the biggest we’ve seen, but they are placed on the front of the thigh, which helps push cold air into your pants very well when you’re riding.

The thigh vents are backed by a double layer of mesh, which helps keep bits of snow out while allowing cold air in.

Jacket

The XT Flex Dry Jacket uses a couple of massive armpit zips to help vent hot air out and cycle cool air in. The zips extend past the armpit and slightly down the inside of the arm. The left side zip runs all the way to the bottom of the jacket! On the right side, the zipper is 35 cm/14 inches long, allowing plenty of air exchange. Neither is backed by mesh, but snow entry is less of a concern on the upper body.

The jacket, although it is a pullover, does still have a ¼ zipper from the collar down, so you can also crank this zip open when things really heat up.

Here’s a miscellaneous list of other features provided:

Pant

• 25 cm/10 inch cuff zipper at the bottom of the legs. You won’t be able to get the pants on and off with your boots on, but this makes it easier to get your boots on and adjusted the way you like.
• Snow gaiter. This is snug (which helps prevent the dreaded pull up when walking in deep snow), and features an elastic snap tab and a rubberized hem, both to help keep the gaiter in place. They serve their purpose well.

• Adjustable waist
• Comfortable and wide suspender straps. These don’t feature a sternum strap to hold them in place.
• The pants are mesh lined

Jacket

• Non-removable hood with a drawstring closure

• Soft material inside neck and chin areas
• Lightly padded shoulders
• Tether attachment point

• Drawstring cinch cord
• Adjustable powder skirt with rubberized hem to help keep it in place

• Stretchy wrist cuff gaiter

In conclusion of our SCOTT XT Flex Dryo review, this is a well-designed outerwear set. The most remarkable feature is the stretchy characteristic, which makes the gear super comfortable to wear and allows a ton of mobility. You could seriously do some jumping jacks and burpees in this thing without issue. A trade-off for that mobility is perhaps a small concession in waterproofness.

The list of features is long, and it ticks almost every box we can think of.

For the first year of the XT Flex Dryo gear, there were no colour choices—only black. We’ve been told that more colours may be on their way, but if there continues to be only one colour to choose from, black is a pretty good choice.

–  MS