Vest design converged
A decade ago every running vest was an experiment. Read the old reviews next to two current spec sheets and most of the experiments have a verdict.
Read the gear reviews from 2013 to 2017 in order and they look like a field trial. Every pack tried a different answer to the same handful of problems: where the fluid goes, how the thing tightens, what happens to a jacket, and whether poles have a home. Set two current vests beside them and it becomes clear how many of those questions are now closed.
Bottles on the chest, bladder optional
The Nathan FireCatcher in 2014 carried two 10-ounce flasks on the front and a rear pocket sized for a 1.5-liter bladder that it did not include. The review liked the flasks and fought the bladder. Once filled, its weight pulled the whole pack downward, and getting a half-full one back into the pocket looked like a real loss of time at an aid station. The Ultimate Direction Ultra Vesta a few months earlier also put two 10-ounce bottles on the chest, with openings too narrow to take ice.
Orange Mud’s HydraQuiver went the other way and carried bottles upright high on the back, on the argument that fluid on the chest pulls a tired runner into a forward lean. It was a good argument and the review answered every question it asked. It did not become the template.
By 2017 the Raidlight Responsiv came with two 600 ml wide-mouthed flasks, and its stretch front pockets would take extra soft flasks or bottles beyond the two it was built around. That is close to the shape of today’s long-distance vest. The Ultimate Direction Ultra Vest 6.0 ships with two bottles and a rear compartment for a reservoir of up to two liters. Nathan’s Pinnacle 12L comes with a 1.6-liter insulated bladder shaped to cut down sloshing. The front carries the drink a runner reaches for every few minutes; the back carries a reserve for the long gaps between aid.
Weight stopped falling
The FireCatcher weighed 11 ounces out of the box in 2014. The Raidlight weighed 230 grams, about 8.1 ounces, three years later. The Ultra Vest 6.0 is listed at 230 grams without bottles, the same figure, and Nathan gives its 12-liter Pinnacle 6.5 ounces without the bladder.
The big drop came early and then stopped. Since then makers have spent the weight budget on pockets and features, not on shaving more grams. The Pinnacle claims 13 exterior pockets. The FireCatcher had four besides its two flask sleeves.
Poles got a home
In 2015 the pole review spent a whole section on what to do with poles when they were not in use, and the honest options were to carry them mid-shaft or accept being slower. Two years later the Raidlight offered more ways to carry poles than its reviewer had seen on any vest, across the front under the shoulder elastics or upright at the two sides of the back panel.
That excess has become the baseline. The Ultra Vest 6.0 comes with four hooks and bungee loops that fit at the front or the back. The Pinnacle has a vertical kangaroo pocket meant for poles and other long items. A vest sold for ultras without some answer for poles would now look like it had left something out.
Closures stayed simple
The Raidlight’s rotary dial was the most interesting fit mechanism in the old reviews, and the review rated it highly: turn it to snug the vest instead of pulling and rethreading straps on the move. Neither current vest here uses one. Ultimate Direction’s Comfort Cinch tightens the Ultra Vest with polyethylene cord, and the Pinnacle relies on adjustable sternum straps. Cord and strap are easy to fix on a trail, which counts for a lot at mile 80.
Pockets went where the hands are
Almost every complaint in the old reviews was about reach. The VaporKrar belt’s rear pocket was too tight to use on the move. The Raidlight had four or five inches of unused strap high on both shoulders, where its reviewer wanted a gel pocket. The Raidlight’s rear kangaroo pocket could be reached from the front, provided the runner was flexible.
The current answers put more storage where a runner can get at it without stopping. The Ultra Vest 6.0 has a zippered water-resistant phone pocket on the chest, rear pockets on the sides that can be opened while the vest is on, and a small stash pocket on one shoulder. The Pinnacle has two water-resistant chest pockets, side stash pockets and a side-entry kangaroo pocket. The large back pocket is left for things that come out once a race, like the jacket and the spare layer.
The belt survived
The 2013 belt shootout ranked six waist packs on fit first, because a belt that bounces does not get worn twice. The VaporKrar review four years later named the reason the good ones stopped bouncing: a step-through design that compresses the whole way round the waist, with no buckle. Belts are still on the shelf, and Ultimate Direction lists a range of running belts beside its vests. They settled into the shorter runs where one flask and a phone are the whole brief, the job the 2013 test said they were for.