Gear Review: Sport Science Rainbow Tee

Technical tie-dye hiking shirt kicks off weekly Gear Reviews

Gearheads beware: Your free time just got shorter. BACKPACKER is launching gear reviews multiple times a week over on the Gear Channel from editors and our select pool of Reader Testers. This week's entry comes from Reader Tester Will Rochfort, who reviewed the Sport Science Shortsleeve Rainbow Tee.

Here's a little bit from his review:

For all you VW-driving hippies out there who have lamented the retirement of your favorite tie-dyes because they just don’t hack it in the hiking world, you’re gonna love this. The Shortsleeve Rainbow Tee looks like your old friend, but it performs more like a technical hiking tee. The fabric is Dryrelease, made from 85 percent polyester and 15 percent cotton.

The poly/cotton combo is designed to facilitate wicking without the use of any chemicals, which tend to wear off over time. I wore this shirt for four spring weeks in the wet, cool South Carolina forests and the hot, dry Southern California deserts and from a performance perspective, there are few better poly/cotton blends I’ve tested. 

The fabric has superior hand (translation: it feels very, very good against the skin), and even when I suffocated it under a thick sweatshirt while training for springtime hiking, it kept me cool and dry by effectively wicking most of the sweat off of my body.  And after three days of wear, it smelled just as fresh as it did on day one, thanks to the FreshGuard treatment, which blocks body oils (that cause stink) from absorbing into the fabric. 

Read the rest of Will's review right here, and look out for another review this week.

Want to join in on the fun? Apply to be a BACKPACKER Reader Gear Tester for 2010 right here.

—Ted Alvarez