GoLite C-Thru Liteweight Zip Top Tested
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Price:
£35
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Weight: 132 grammes
(medium)
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Features:
Lightweight base-layer zip-top using GoLite's C-Thru
lightweight polyester fabric, deep venting front zip, flat
seam construction, raglan sleeves, stand-up
collar.
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Lighweight, soft against the skin and high wicking.
Nothing really.
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What's
It For? C-Thru is GoLite's patented polyester baselayer fabric;
it uses C-shaped open channel polyester fibres which, they say,
expose a greater surface area than conventional round, hollow fibres
and mean water evaporates faster leading to quicker drying and
cooling along with lower pong levels thanks to a lack of
dampness.
The lightweight version tested is designed to be used as a
standalone hot weather garment offering sun protection or can be
layered in cooler conditions. Like all baselayers, it's intended to
wick moisture away from the body and keep you dry and comfortable in
the process.
The Techy Bits It's really all about the fabric. Polyester
baselayers which move moisture using their structure are nothing new,
in fact they're pretty much standard issue, but the Canadian-made
C-Thru stuff is claimed to 'keep you drier than all leading
baselayers' thanks to fibres with an increased surface area.
How It Works The insanely hot and humid weather we've had over
July makes massive demands on baselayers and, to be honest, we
weren't expecting anything special from GoLite's polyester top, but
we were pleasantly surprised.
Despite hideously sweaty outings on foot and bike, the C-Thru
fabric wicked and dried at least as fast as anything else we've used
and was soft and comfortable against the skin. Generally thinner
baselayer fabrics seem to work better anyway as they're moving
moisture across a smaller distance, but the C-Thru's performance was
excellent even by those standards and subjectively out-performed our
favourite lightweight Berghaus Xstatic Top.
We liked the long-sleeved, zip-neck format too with the ability to
roll down the sleeves for sun protection and zip or unzip the
half-length zip opening for ventilation. The collar uses an interlining to make it stiff enough to stand up and offer sun
protection to the back of the neck which we liked in the hot
conditions, though it felt a little odd at first.
Excellent hot conditions, lightweight baselayer offering a
good combination of comfort, wicking, ventilation and sun protection.
It's unquestionably one of the best wicking baselayer fabrics we've
used and did sterling service in hideous conditions.
There's no anti-microbial treatment, so it does tend to be a 'one
wear' option, but it doesn't pong in use, which is good enough for
us. Highly recommended.
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Performance
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Value
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