Icon’s “Mil Spec” (or military specification) high visibility vest arrived at NYC Scootering Towers this week so we took it for a spin.

First off, why wear a vest? Well frankly, anything you can do on the streets of NYC to increase your visibility is literally increasing your survival rate. We recommend getting comfortable with the idea of wearing it whenever you jump on your scoot. Steve Guzman over at The Scooter Scoop has certainly found a way to integrate it into his wardrobe.

At the very least you should aim to wear it when riding at night or in poor visibility conditions such as heavy rain. And going with a vest means this additional visibility is optional. It’s either that or going with a neon jacket/helmet combination and working toward your Power Ranger audition.

The skinny

The vest is available in two sizes: regular and over-sized, and in a yellow or orange finish. For our money, the yellow vest is going to give you the highest visibility, particularly at night. And if you’re a guy and you intend to wear it over anything more than the lightest jacket, you’ll likely want the over-sized version to give you the greatest flexibility.

In either size, as is typical of vests, the side seams are adjustable to your preference.

These kinds of vests are a requirement for riders on US military bases and as such the Icon vest includes a number of military gestures:

Mounted front are a zip pocket on the right-breast (including a number of military specification codes) and a removable ID card holder on the left-breast which is held firmly in place with a generous quantity of Velcro.

There’s a further internal zip pocket just inside the right breast ideally suited for a cell phone or similar sized item. And interestingly a generously deep pocket on the back of the vest much like on a cyclists vest. This could be used for storing a folded rain jacket or similar.

The pros?

Build quality really stands out on this vest with much of the stitching feeling jacket grade let alone vest grade. As such the vest is light enough for it’s intention but clearly rugged and not going to balloon and rip in the wind.

Storage as mentioned above is generous, and combined with your jacket means you shouldn’t want for places to put your gadgets (just no fussing with them while you’re riding people.)

The design is also a big win (for the category) with the back being particularly sporty with the inverse reflective chevrons carrying across from the front and the storage pocket. The back is a little over-branded with the Icon logo for our taste but the logo does however provide a generous amount more reflective material across the shoulders to really pick up on car headlights.

The cons?

The branded pocket on the right breast is almost entirely un-zippable but disappointingly not entirely removable. We assume it’s a military requirement that the details displayed on this pocket are required for base wear. I don’t anticipate most scooterists needing it may be possible to find a way to remove it.

We can take or leave the ID holder, but recognize that it’s a useful feature of the original intention of this vest. We welcome suggestions for it’s use on the mean streets of NYC. We certainly won’t be trusting our licenses to it.

Finally, the vest doesn’t fold down as tight as other visibility vests for under-seat or glove box storage but to be fair, that also speaks to the build-quality mentioned above.

The verdict?

As it says on the tag, “no bright reflective vest is going to win you style awards. But if you have to wear one it might as well have the style and features that wont make you cringe.”

That about sums up Icon’s “Mil Spec” high visibility vest. There are plenty of visibility vest options available online but most of them make you look like some sort of version of a two-wheeled construction worker. At least the Icon vest makes you look like a two-wheeled construction work from a post-apocalyptic gasoline-starved future. Stay safe out there.

The MSRP is $55 and it’s available from all the usual online vendors although we’ve yet to see it in a local store.

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