Castelli Zipper -- RIP (no longer ZIP)

[mdeth1313]

Good thing I checked my jacket before my ride.



Castelli Radiation 1-2-3 Jacket. It gets a lot of use in the winter, but it's the first zipper I've had go like this. Fortunately, I was able to "harvest" the necessary hardware from an old fleece and still use the jacket.

As I mentioned before, this has never happened to me before with any piece of cycling clothing and the jacket is about 6-7 years old.

Is this a castelli thing?

[pdlpsher1]

Yes, this happened to three of my Castelli jerseys. My dad does some sewing and he was able to find a white zipper with the exact length as the one that broke. He just repaired three jerseys for me. I think the zipper breaks due to the stress of laundry. I probably have washed them more than 300 times. The metal appears to be sintered so it probably has very low strength and poor durability.

[campbellrae]

I've had it on a few things from Castelli, nobody else, so I don't know what they do differently. I really liked the Zoncolan jacket but the zipper broke after about a year, same for a couple of custom jerseys made by Castelli. I've stopped buying from them now because of it unfortunately.

[Tom14]

I've never had these problems with Castelli.

[mdeth1313]

I mentioned in my original post I "harvested" a new piece from an old fleece I had laying around. There are zipper repair kits and my home version worked quite well on my ride to work today. I don't own many castelli pieces but this jacket and an espresso 3 are my main winter jackets - if that piece is the worst of it I'm not too worried.

[KWalker]

This has happened to me a bunch but the pieces its happened on are 3y old staples that are still going strong. I went to a camping/tent repair store and bought a heavy duty zipper and very carefully pried/clamped it on. Been strong for 2y since.

[dmp]

It may be a Castelli thing- I had the same thing happen to a relatively new Castelli long sleeved jersey. The pull broke off, but the business end of the zipper was still ok. I was able to salvage it with some fine multi filament cord. I thought my problem was unique but perhaps Castelli needs a new source for zippers.

[claus]

Zipper failures happened with many of my Castelli items:
"total" failure (would have to replace zipper):
Body Paint Tri Suit (paid $20 for a new zipper)
Body Paint Jersey (haven't decided yet)
some "normal" Jersey (not worth it)
partially broken, still "usable":
Thermal Jacket
three Jerseys

So I mostly gave up on Castelli (unless it's really cheap and in XS).

[chipomarc]

Not just a Castelli thing.

I've had a zipper go on year old Capo jacket.

No issue getting a new upgraded zipper installed at the local dry cleaners.

[scottw1987]

7 years means it's surely had it's moneys worth of use? Maybe it's time to buy a nice new jacket?

[mdeth1313]

7 years means it's surely had it's moneys worth of use? Maybe it's time to buy a nice new jacket?

Nope. New zipper piece, just used it today. Not many jackets that versatile.