Tech Podcast: What are cooling fabrics?
Cooling fabrics help move moisture and reflect the sun's rays to keep you cool, which means you're no longer bound to light colors on the hot summer days.
Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members! Download the app.
Can dark fabrics keep you cool? It used to be standard practice to err on the side of light colors in hot weather, but with modern cooling fabrics, it’s entirely possible to stay cool and dry even if you’re wearing black clothing.
Of course, that comes with a caveat: The clothing needs to be designed specifically to keep you cool. Makes sense, right? Rob Pickels from Pearl Izumi joins VeloNews tech editor Dan Cavallari on the tech podcast to wade through the science that makes a cool fabric, and how you can stay cool and dry on your next summer ride.
Related:
- Tech Podcast: What makes a good pair of bib shorts?
- Tech Podcast: What is moment of inertia and why does it matter?
- Tech Podcast: What’s the story with 3D-printed saddles?
Pickels walks us through Pearl Izumi’s In-R-Cool fabrics, powered by Coldblack, to give us a sense of the different ways cooling fabrics address your body’s heat regulation. While reflecting light away from your body is part of the equation, it turns out there’s much more to it — including moving moisture away from the body and even spreading it over a larger surface area to help it evaporate more quickly.
Oh, and what about things like sun sleeves? Can adding more clothing to your body actually keep you cooler? Pickels has the answer, and it might be a tad more complex than you would think.
If you have questions about this episode of the VeloNews Tech Podcast, or if you have suggestions for topics you’d like us to cover on a future episode, you can contact tech editor Dan Cavallari via email, or on Twitter or Instagram.