Reviewer Stats:

• • Name:  John Persons
  • Days used: 21
  • Height: 5’7″
  • Weight: 135lbs
  • Skiing Level:  Expert
  • Used for: Backcountry Skiing, Alpine Skiing, and Nordic Skiing
  • Jacket Size Tested: XS
  • Jacket Color: Charcoal
  • Snow Pants Size Tested: XS
  • Snow Pants Color: Night
  • Preferred Conditions: Deep Powder and Steep Terrain

 

Locations Tested:

• • Wasatch Backcountry, UT
  • Snowbird, UT
  • Solitude, UT
  • Brighton, UT
  • Alta, UT
  • Rochester, MN
  • Minneapolis, MN

 

Who is it for:

• Outdoor Recreationalists who spend long days outdoors in cold and constantly changing conditions and who prefer to wear layers when it comes to winter clothing.

 

 

Overall Impression:

The Quantum Pro Jacket is designed to be a durable, warm, and breathable outer shell that keeps harsh weather conditions on the outside. 

It is made to be used either within the ski resort boundaries or for backcountry adventures. 

This jacket is fairly lightweight. It’s not quite as light as some of Flylow’s more specific backcountry skiing jackets but it’s definitely not heavy. It is a slightly toned down version of fly lows Lab Coat jacket.

After using it for the past month and a half I’m not sure why you would ever get the Lab Coat jacket. This jacket does a superb job at keeping wind, sleet, and snow out.

The Quantum Pro packs down so it can fit into a pack when fewer layers are needed especially when skinning up in the backcountry. 

The Tannen Bib is designed to be a stretchy suspender style bib to be used in all conditions both within resorts and in the backcountry. 

This bib is especially good for people who don’t like the coverage feel of full bibs. The front of these bibs don’t come up nearly as far as most bibs do.

Much like the Quantum Pro jacket these pants are designed to be an outer shell layer. Therefore wearing an underlayer is a must. I personally wear a pair of American Eagle Joggers underneath.

I really like the fit and feel of these bibs. They are in no way movement restrictive, which makes them very comfortable especially for long days in the backcountry.

I especially like the horizontal zipping dual pockets in the front which make for a very comfortable place to store your phone.

 

Pros:

• Waterproofing

• Warm

• Breathability

• Durability

• Number of Pockets

• Waterproof Zippers

 

Cons: 

• Fits Big

• Lack of snow stoppers on wrists

• Zippers can be tough to zip

• Non-insulated

 

 

Fit and Sizing:

I am five foot seven inches and am fairly slim, weighing only 135 lbs. The Quantum Pro Jacket and Tannen Bibs that I tested were both X-Small in size.

The Quantum Pro is definitely designed to fit kinda large. I had plenty of room to move around in even when wearing additional layers. This extra volume makes the jacket not restrictive at all, which is really nice when skiing fast.

Despite the larger inside, this jacket does not look at all puffy or bulgy from the outside. 

This jacket is also slightly longer than I expected. This is nice on powder days but it can make the jacket look a little bit baggy depending on what size you get.

The Tannen Bib fits very true to size in my opinion. The X-Small size fit me perfectly.

There is plenty of room in these bibs to be wearing underlayers without feeling too tight or restricted at all. 

Obviously take all of this with a grain of salt because it’s coming from someone who is only five foot seven. I recommend looking at the sizing chart before just assuming that you are your normal size.

 

 

Features and Pockets:

My favorite thing so far about these products is the pockets. 

The Quantum Pro jacket has 8 pockets and 2 air vents. The locations of these pockets are listed below. 

• 1 lower sleeve pocket: Perfect for putting your ski pass. 

• 2 outer breast pocket

• 1 inter breast pocket

• 2 outer lower jacket pockets

• 2 inner lower jacket pockets

• 2 armpit air vents

 

The Tannen Bib has 4 pockets and 4 air vents. The locations of these pockets are listed below. 

• 2 front horizontal zipping pockets: Great Phone Pocket. 

• 1 front slightly lower left side pocket

• 1 rear right side pocket

• 2 inner air vents

• 2 outer air vents: These both function as a way to get to the pockets of your under layers. The left side one will zip all the way off the top for added ease of putting these bibs on. 

 

I really like the horizontal zipper pockets on these bibs. The horizontal zipper makes it nearly impossible for stuff to fall out when you forget to zip them.

The only downside to these bibs from a pocket perspective is that none of the pockets have a beacon strap. This forces me to use a chest strap when backcountry skiing.

The Quantum Pro jacket has a buttoning powder skirt embedded on the inside. This skirt also buttons onto the Tannen Bibs. This creates a snow-proof layer that will keep snow out even on the deepest of low density powder days.

On both of these products some of the waterproof zippers can be a little bit difficult to zip with cold hands. That being said this is a minor, unavoidable flaw with waterproof zippers.

 

Weight: 

The weight of the Quantum Pro jacket is about what you would expect. Based on its acclaimed weight of 1 lb 7.1 oz (M), it’s about in the middle of the pack for weight. It doesn’t feel too heavy when skiing.

The Tannen Bib is slightly lighter than the other pairs of snow pants that I have owned. This is largely because these pants function more like a shell, so they don’t have the additional weight of insulation to drag along.

 

 

Materials:

The Quantum Pro jacket is made from Flylow’s three-layer Intuitive Oxford material. The material used is similar to that of a rain jacket. This allows the jacket to be very good at keeping moisture out.

The outside of this jacket is then coated in a layer of OmniBloq Durable Water Repellent. Flylow claims that this keeps the jacket dry 3 times longer than the industry standard DWR. I am yet to have water soak through it so I believe this claim.

However, the material itself is not the most flexible. This causes the jacket to feel kinda rigid and crinkly. This rigidity also makes it slightly harder to stuff into a smaller pack when you are shedding layers.

I am hoping that this material will become more flexible with time. 

The Tannen Bibs is also made from Flylow’s three layer Intuitive Fabric. They claim that using this fabric allows them to bring the weight down by 40%. I can believe this because these bibs are fairly light.

The material around the waist band is stretchy. This makes the bibs comfortable and good at preventing snow from getting in if you decide to tomahawk.

Much like the material of the jacket, this material isn’t the softest. I prefer not to wear it on bare skin. Therefore, I normally wear an under layer even on warmer days.

 

Weather and Waterproofing:

As soon as you take the Quantum Pro out on a powder day you will realize how bombproof this jacket is. It is designed to be able to keep you dry in any conditions.

The material does an excellent job at keeping fun weather conditions out. The three-layer Intuitive material plus the Omnibloq DWR layer gives this jacket a 20k waterproofing. This is significantly higher than the industry baseline standard of 5k.

The only place in which the Quantum Pro jacket fails the weatherproofing test is at the wrists. This jacket has no snow stopper to prevent snow from getting on your wrist, in your glove, or up your jacket.

On deep powder days the freezing cold wrists that result from this can get annoying. I do admit though that if you wear an under layer with a thumb hole this largely fixes the problem. However, for a jacket with such a well thought out powder skirt, I’m disappointed that Flylow didn’t think to do anything about this.

Much like this jacket, the Tannen bib also does a great job at keeping the weather conditions on the outside. The elastic material around the upper part of the bibs and the snow stopper at the bottom does a great job keeping snow out.

Due to the Intuitive fabrics these pants also have a higher waterproof rating. 

The snow stopper at the ankles works especially well. Instead of using a metal clip, it uses a strong elastic band. This keeps the pants nice and tight around your boots without all the annoyances of the metal clip system.

 

Breathability: 

The Quantum Pro jacket does an excellent job keeping temperatures and moisture out. Such a good job in fact that it struggles to get body heat and sweat out.

Despite the armpit air vents, this jacket gets hot. When skinning up in the backcountry this jacket is usually in my backpack, as it is in the photo below.

This jacket is fine on midrange to cold days in resorts but is not my jacket of choice for warmer days. 

The Tannen bib is more breathable than the jacket for sure. The 4 large air vents combined with the thinner material gives these bibs good ventilation.

I surprisingly rarely find my self opening more than 2 of the air vents even on steeper backcountry skins.

 

 

Durability: 

The Quantum Pro jacket is a very rugged durable jacket. The material feels strong and borderline industrial. I am yet to even put a scratch on it.

The Tannen bibs on the other hand are definitely made from a thinner material. This gives them better breathability but not as good durability. In the 20ish days I have skied on them I have put a few small holes by the ankle areas from my skis hitting them.

I have also put one slightly larger hole (0.5 inches) further up in the leg area on the bibs. However, this hole was from a crampon so I can’t really fault the bibs here cause I am yet to find a pair of snow pants that will take a crampon hit.

All of that being said it’s not a weak material, I just wish that they would have used a little bit thicker material like that of the Quantum Pro.

 

Packability: 

This category only really applies to the Quantum Pro jacket because when you’re skiing you never really take off your snow pants. 

The Quantum Pro jacket is not as packable as you might think. Due to the rigid material it does not fold down as nicely as one would hope.

It’s like trying to stuff an industrial tarp into your backpack. It kinda folds and rolls but it definitely doesn’t stuff.

I can get it into my airbag pack but it takes up most of the free space that I do have. I would recommend getting a more packable jacket if you do a lot of backcountry skiing.

 

Bottom Line: 

If you are looking for a weatherproof jacket/bib combo to keep you dry in the worst of conditions while in bounds skiing I recommend the Quantum Pro jacket with the Tannen bibs. 

I give the Quantum Pro jacket a 7 out of 10. 

I give the Tannen bib an 8 out of 10. 

Paired with a good under layer, you will be very happy with how warm, dry, and comfortable you are in this kit.