I recently had a customer who was comparing these jackets for a possible purchase. After purchasing a Firstgear Hi-Viz Meshtex jacket over the summer, he realized that other vehicles were reacting differently to him on the road and perhaps it was time to go Hi-Viz year round.
The Firstgear Kilimanjaro Jacket appealed to him initially due to brand familiarity and because he thought it would zip to his Firstgear pants. Unfortunately, there is no connection on the Kili jacket. I personally don’t have an issue with this. Between the extra length of the ¾ style jacket and the fact that most riding pants have a raised back section, you are unlikely to get any skin exposure.
The Scorpion XDR Commander jacket does come with a 9” connecting zip if that’s your thing, and Scorpion does provide both halves in case you need to sew them into a non-compatible pair of pants. Here are feature-by-feature comparisons of the Kilimanjaro jacket and the XDR Commander jacket.
My customer’s first reason for buying the Hi-Viz jacket was the color option. Holding the jackets together, the colors on the Hi-Viz portions are basically a match. However doing this I noticed that the black accents on the XDR Commander actually make the neon part pop a bit more than the dull gray accent colors do on the Kili. This is just nit picking of course. You would probably never know this if you saw the jackets separately. As I said to my customer, I would still purchase the Kilimanjaro with confidence that it will...Read More.
