saying that your rei jacket is identical is just silly.

you're saying silly things.

96% of the performance in 95% of the situations you ride in, totally legit. identical? no. no jacket is identical to the orion, it's completely ground up designed unique and fits like no other jacket i've ever tried on.

also, your 60 dollar jacket isn't scheoller c-change. it's just not. if you can't tell the difference, great. keep shopping at target.

the orion is a better jacket and i want it. no one is going to change that. that said, my alternative is probably a lot more of an alternative than your alternative. my jacket is made out of 4-way stretch softshell (nylon spandex blend) with a thin polyester backing. yours is two way and waterproof. mine doesn't need pitzips. it's not laminated like your shell, and probably breathes much better because of it... hence not needing pit zips. that said, it's still not an orion. the orion keeps water out in ways this doesn't, and probably breathes better too.

and in fit, next to the orion, the eddie bauer first ascent jacket i just bought is a bag. it's easily got room for three sweaters under it, and it's a small. the orion would have been snug with just a heavyweight champion hoodie underneath in size small, because those fit like bags too.

our jackets are alternatives but they both compromise a lot from the orion. yours compromises a crazy amount of breathability, mine a crazy amount of water resistance.

and while our jackets may work as well as we ever need them to, they still don't fit like an orion. or breathe like one. and they don't say mission workshop on them.

fwiw i also tried on some arcteryx shells that were gore-tex pro, very similar to the orion, but were 450-500. they didn't fit as nicely as the orion, for biking or for walking around.

compared to these arcteryx examples, the orion's a bargain. and was made in arcteryx's old facility in vancouver bc.

my jacket was made in bangledesh.