I wore the Held Torno 2 jeans in combination with Held’s impressive Carese 2 Gore-Tex jacket on a five-week, 4800-mile tour around Europe that took in a wide range of weather conditions. You can read my review of the Carese 2 jacket here.
The Torno 2 and Carese 2 are designed to work together and have an innovative method of waterproofing that makes them ideally suited to the type of trip I undertook. The Torno 2’s Gore-Tex membrane can be removed from inside the trousers and worn over the top instead.
This means you can carry the liner around as an oversuit – so a cooler, better-ventilated suit in warm conditions and an easy solution should it start to rain as it’s much simpler to put a liner over the top than it is to remove jeans and zip a liner in place.
Photography: VERSTOMD
This innovative Gore-Tex function proved excellent throughout my tour, keeping me absolutely dry with no leakage at all, despite storm conditions. Like most oversuits the trousers can be a little tricky to put on over wet boots, but once it was on it worked well.
While I was happy with the performance of the product, I found a key disappointment centring around the sizing. The Torno 2 jeans fitted me well around the waist and hips, where there are Velcro adjusters, but they were far too long in the leg and as a result the armour was positioned below my knee.
Held make different versions to fit people with different body shapes but not for those with shorter legs. This surprised me, as my height of 1.75m (a shade under 5ft 9in) and inside leg of 30in is not that unusual.
The armour in the knee is held in an internal pocket and it can be repositioned, but not by enough to make it right for someone of my size.
I was also surprised that the trousers are not supplied with any hip armour, although it can be purchased separately (£15.99) to sit in internal pockets.
While I liked the matching jacket very much, the trouser length issue would be enough of a problem to stop me purchasing the suit. While this criticism doesn’t apply to riders with longer legs, I would have thought it a simple solution for Held to offer different leg lengths.
Fit & Comfort
If there was a shorter leg length option, or more adjustabilty for the knee armour position, my score would have been considerably higher.
Protection
It is disappointing that you have to buy the hip armour separately and the inability to reposition the knee armour is a big negative. Compared to other suits the armour feels small.
Waterproofing
Taking out the Gore-Tex liner and using it as an oversuit, I was 100% dry in some very wet conditions.
Build quality
The suit is well made and feels robust enough to last for many years. There was an issue with stitching on the matching jacket, but no problem on the trousers.
Features
The spec is very high – the jeans only lose out because there’s no hip armour as standard and Held don’t make different leg lengths.