Support road.cc

Like this site? Help us to make it better.

review

Sportful 2nd Skin Neck Warmer

8
£19.00

VERDICT:

8
10
Good synthetic draught barrier to keep the winter chills at bay.
Weight: 
38g
Contact: 
www.sportful.it

At road.cc every product is thoroughly tested for as long as it takes to get a proper insight into how well it works. Our reviewers are experienced cyclists that we trust to be objective. While we strive to ensure that opinions expressed are backed up by facts, reviews are by their nature an informed opinion, not a definitive verdict. We don't intentionally try to break anything (except locks) but we do try to look for weak points in any design. The overall score is not just an average of the other scores: it reflects both a product's function and value – with value determined by how a product compares with items of similar spec, quality, and price.

What the road.cc scores mean

Good scores are more common than bad, because fortunately good products are more common than bad.

  • Exceptional
  • Excellent
  • Very Good
  • Good
  • Quite good
  • Average
  • Not so good
  • Poor
  • Bad
  • Appalling

It's that time again, where the chilly morning breezes work their way inside the neck of your jacket. There's a number of options for stuffing the gap, and Sportful's 2nd Skin neck warmer is a good one.

The fabric is a synthetic mix (58% Nylon, 30% Polyester, 12% Lycra) that's similar to what you'd find in a compressive baselayer. It's seamless, which means that it's pretty comfy to wear, and very stretchy: even though it's a close fit you can get it on over a helmet if you forget it and want to pull it on at the last minute. I'm not suggesting that's a great idea, but it does give you an idea of how much it'll stretch.

In use it does a very good job of keeping draughts at bay, and it's easy to breathe through if you want to pull it up to protect your face on really chilly rides. It's light enough to go under a helmet too, although it's not really designed for that. It's long enough to pull right up over your ears, and stretchy enough to stay there when you do.

The synthetic fabric will probably need to be washed a bit more frequently than a cotton-based or Merino neck warmer, but it's not as if your neck is a particular hotbed of smelly bacteria. I've been using it on and off for a few weeks, and it's still fine. Sportful claim it has good wicking properties; certainly it stays drier to the touch than a cotton one on harder rides.

Mostly you want a neck warmer to, erm, keep your neck warm. And the Sportful 2nd Skin does that very well. It's cheaper than a Merino one and more than a cotton one. And for the money, you get a good product.

Verdict

Good synthetic draught barrier to keep the winter chills at bay.

If you're thinking of buying this product using a cashback deal why not use the road.cc Top Cashback page and get some top cashback while helping to support your favourite independent cycling website

road.cc test report

Make and model: Sportful 2nd Skin Neck Warmer

Size tested: red

Tell us what the product is for, and who it's aimed at. What do the manufacturers say about it? How does that compare to your own feelings about it?

The Sportful 2nd Skin Neck Warmer has a high stretch seamless construction for the perfect fit, wicking fabric to draw moisture away from the skin.

Tell us some more about the technical aspects of the product?

Fabric:58% Polyamide, 30% Polyester and 12% Elastane

Fabric Properties:Warmth and high stretch

Rate the product for quality of construction:
 
8/10
Rate the product for performance:
 
8/10
Rate the product for durability:
 
7/10
Rate the product for weight, if applicable:
 
8/10
Rate the product for comfort, if applicable:
 
8/10
Rate the product for value:
 
7/10

Tell us what you particularly liked about the product

Clingy, warm, does its job well.

Did you enjoy using the product? Yes.

Would you consider buying the product? Yes.

Would you recommend the product to a friend? Yes.

Overall rating: 8/10

About the tester

Age: 40  Height: 190cm  Weight: 102kg

I usually ride: whatever I'm testing...  My best bike is: Genesis Equilibrium with SRAM Apex

I've been riding for: 10-20 years  I ride: Every day  I would class myself as: Experienced

I regularly do the following types of riding: commuting, sportives, general fitness riding, fixed/singlespeed, mtb, Mountain Bike Bog Snorkelling, track

 

Dave is a founding father of road.cc, having previously worked on Cycling Plus and What Mountain Bike magazines back in the day. He also writes about e-bikes for our sister publication ebiketips. He's won three mountain bike bog snorkelling World Championships, and races at the back of the third cats.

Add new comment

3 comments

Avatar
pj | 10 years ago
0 likes

Does it warm the blood of the carotid artery?

Avatar
ajmarshal1 replied to pj | 10 years ago
0 likes
pj wrote:

Does it warm the blood of the carotid artery?

Keeping the carotid artery warm is an often overlooked method of preventing venous and arterial heatloss and is something that has been taught consistently to me during multiple extremely cold weather exercises in Norway.

Just saying like.

Avatar
jarredscycling | 10 years ago
0 likes

Kind of nice that it is stretchy. The one I have at home is more of a fleece fabric and it isn't stretchy. Therefore you really can't pull it up onto your face and get it to stay there

Latest Comments