Rab PS Hoodie

What's It For?

Rab says the new PS Hoodie is 'a close fitting high performance, highly breathable layering garment designed for all high activity mountain sports'. And that seems about right to us.

The Techy Bits

Polartec's Power Stretch has been around for ages and is a bit of a forgotten fabric. It's a properly stretchy microfleece-ish weight fleece that wicks as well and dries as fast as normal fleece, but because of the elastane stretch element, can be cut closer fitting. Rab's top uses flat-locked seams to reduce bulk and increase comfort.

How It Performed

The PS Hoodie has become another one of those second skin garments for us. It gives the right level of insulation for active winter use under a shell jacket for hill walking or biking or even running when things fall below zero. It also dries fast and wicks well.

What we love about Power Stretch is that the elastic fabric gives an excellent, efficient close fit that works well with snug-cut shell layers and doesn't hamper mobility if, say, you're climbing or mountaineering. It also gives slightly more wind resistance than conventional fleece.

Rab's version also scores by having unobtrusive thumb-loops - if you're not using them, you won't notice they're there - Rab's longish sleeves for draft-free reach ups and a snug hood that sits nicely under a climbing or biking helmet or can simply be pulled on for walking stops.

Verdict

Takes one of the best active mid-layer fabrics out there and adds a couple of neat features that we really appreciated in the form of the hood and thumb-loops to make a versatile, close-fitting top that you can pretty much put on in November and take off some time in early spring.

Buy if you're looking for a versatile, snug-fitting, lightweight mid-layer for fast-moving cold weather activities or to layer with other garments to make a more versatile system.