wearing wool for commuting to stop the stink?

scottgeniusltd2005

i have read on various sites that wool stops the commuting stink. i have a 40 mile round trip commute coming up. i could carry extra clothes and towels etc etc. but does the wool solution work? i.e., in wool could i ride in, cool down, just wash my face and nothing else? or would i be uncomfortable and smell? anybody use wool and commute this way?

iPete

I use an Ice Breaker merino base layer, however I use it as it stops me stinking when I put it back on at the end of the day and doesn't need washing all week but it doesn't allow me to get away with a canned shower.

Over that distance, it'd be hard to not need a shower IMO. Currently doing 17 each way myself..

ride_whenever

+1 for icebreakers, however you're still going to sweat.

The way forward would be to leave your towel in the office, and wear as little as possible for riding to prevent sweating.

scottgeniusltd2005

cheers fellas, i'll probably just carry stuff in then. nowhere to leave stuff or dry stuff. but at least plastic clothes are light and scrunch up small

iPete

In that case, it might be worth trying one of these, mine stays at the office but its easy to take home. Takes a little getting used to but works great..

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/p/swim/9/Maru_A ... 360023210/

morstar

I believe the smell issue with synthetics is because they are so good at dispersing moisture, they are simply left with the smelly bits of your perspiration (urea?) in a concentrated form. Hence they get very smelly.

Cotton stays wet but not particularly smelly and wool does something different altogether. I think it is simply the weight and structure of the material that enables it to absorb so much moisture without quickly feeling wet. When damp, it retains warmth like a wet suit so the complete dryness (that synthetics aspire to) is not necessary.

Soul Boy

Heres Howies take on it:

Last one up the mountain stinks?

Look here, it’s about your... Well, it’s about your polyester base layer... How can we put this nicely..? Sorry, there’s no two ways about it, no beating about the bush, we’ll just have to come right out and say it:

Yeeeuw. That whiffs!

No, it’s not you. It’s your base layer. And your bacteria.

So why is it man-made base layers stink so bad after wearing them a few times? It’s all down to chemistry. Petro-chemistry, that is.

Man-made base layers are all made from oil. They’ve got some good things going for them, like they’re cheap, they look good and they sell well. They do an ok job of wicking sweat away and they dry fast.

So how come they smell so fast too? The problem is, though they claim to be breathable, it’s only the holes in the weave of the fabric that breathe, not the fabric itself.

At rest, the body may lose half a litre of water per day through perspiration. Riding hard up a mountain, that can rise to one litre an hour. The job of a base layer is to get that perspiration away from the body fast. The problem with a man-made fibre is that it can only absorb up to 5% of its weight in moisture. (No wonder it dries fast.)

In comparison, Merino fibre can absorb up to 30% of its weight in moisture, which means it can move the perspiration away from the body faster.

Meanwhile, back under the stink-layer, things are hotting up. The sweat that can’t get away is condensing on the skin and the bacteria can start to get to work. The synthetic fibres are a playground for bacteria because the fibres are so uniform and easy to cling to. They soon set up camp, light a fire and make lunch.

Merino fibres, on the other hand, are coated with microscopic scales that make it hard for the bacteria to grab hold of, proving once again nature is much smarter than man.

To stop the stink, you have to kill off the bacteria with a 60 degree wash. Except you can only wash man-made base layers at 40 degrees. So some manufacturers coat their fibres in heavy-metal ions, so called anti-microbials, to kill off bacteria on-site. That is, on you. But these tend to wash out after 30-50 washes.

And those heavy-metal particles you haven’t sweated off onto your skin are washed into the water supply.

And that stinks too, no?

http://www.howies.co.uk/section.php/16/0 - for their selection, not cheap, but good for the enviorment.

rjsterry

Think I'll be going sheep-based next time. My Cannondale Le Carbone baselayer looks the part in a slightly superhero kind of way, but is very honky after riding in, and hanging up to 'mature' for the day (not so superhero).

BTW, I read somewhere that wool actually heats up (slightly) when it gets wet. I'm not sure of the mechanism, but it would explain why wooly socks are so cozy.

london-red

My Endura Baa Baa merino base layer is the business and lasts all week of commuting (110 miles).

My Gore Phantom jacket pongs after a day.

What to do?

Soul Boy

Heres Howies take on that:

It's hot when you are cool. It's cool when you are hot. Who said sheep are dumb?

Merinos are smart. Merino farmers say they are as every bit as clever as their sheep dogs. But then, Merino are no ordinary sheep. The Merino fibre itself is just as smart. It can tell when you're hot. It can tell when you're cold. It can manage your microclimate even if you didn't know you had one. And it's all down to Mother Nature.

That's because Merino is hygroscopic. That means it can absorb water, or more precisely sweat. And because it can do so in significant amounts, your body can shed more heat when wearing Merino than when you wear a non-hygroscopic man-made base layer. So basically, it keeps you cool when you're hot. And it works the other way around too.

If you want to read more... http://www.howies.co.uk/content.php?xSecId=40

During cool and damp conditions Merino fibres actually gain heat, so they help to keep you hot when you're cold. These two processes are called absorption and desorption. Man has tried to replicate this intelligence in a fabric but has so far had little success. It could take a while. It took a few thousand years of evolution for the Merino to come up with that. And they are pretty smart. This natural ability to regulate your temperature explains why the Dry-wool Base Layer which is only 35% Merino still works so well. Because the Merino is where it is needed most. Next to your skin so it can work its natural magic. Living proof of this is all the awards and good reviews that it keeps receiving. In one magazine alone (What Mountain Bike) it won three awards, including the overall top award.

Not bad for a dumb old sheep.

emdeef

+1 for the Baa Baa. I wear mine all week before it's washed and it never smells unlike the synthetic base it replaced which I needed to change after a couple of days.

oscarbudgie

One thing that rarely gets mentioned about bike racing is that often you can see, hear and smell the peloton.

artaxerxes

++1 for the Endura Ba Ba, it's a great baselayer. So how do these new fangled bamboo base layers perform in terms of smell?

roger_merriman

oscarbudgie wrote:

One thing that rarely gets mentioned about bike racing is that often you can see, hear and smell the peloton.

not the same but last summer there was a dead deer on one of the hills in the north downs, you could smell it two/three corners away as you came down the hill...

london-red

I'm actually considering investing in a Rapha Merino jersey to go with it, anyone had any experience?

biondino

I've never had problems with synthetics smelling, but then I do wash them often (at 30 degrees, works fine). That said, merino's pretty great.

BentMikey

'k me on wearing a base layer all week without washing it. Wash it every day you stinkers.

+1 on Endura BaaBaa here, lovely. Endura Frontline is also pretty good, esp. for the colder days.

PBo

That's because Merino is hygroscopic. That means it can absorb water, or more precisely sweat. And because it can do so in significant amounts, your body can shed more heat when wearing Merino than when you wear a non-hygroscopic man-made base layer. So basically, it keeps you cool when you're hot. And it works the other way around too.

this bothers me....we cool down because sweat uses our body heat to evaporate. if base layers just draw the moisture away, what's the cooling mechanism????

Wallace1492

PBo wrote:

That's because Merino is hygroscopic. That means it can absorb water, or more precisely sweat. And because it can do so in significant amounts, your body can shed more heat when wearing Merino than when you wear a non-hygroscopic man-made base layer. So basically, it keeps you cool when you're hot. And it works the other way around too.

this bothers me....we cool down because sweat uses our body heat to evaporate. if base layers just draw the moisture away, what's the cooling mechanism????

Your body still evaporates sweat and cools you down, however it will sweat vastly more that it can evaporate, and that needs to go somewhere. A good base layer, wicks the excess sweat away keeping you more comfortable.

PBo

Wallace1492 wrote:

PBo wrote:

That's because Merino is hygroscopic. That means it can absorb water, or more precisely sweat. And because it can do so in significant amounts, your body can shed more heat when wearing Merino than when you wear a non-hygroscopic man-made base layer. So basically, it keeps you cool when you're hot. And it works the other way around too.

this bothers me....we cool down because sweat uses our body heat to evaporate. if base layers just draw the moisture away, what's the cooling mechanism????

Your body still evaporates sweat and cools you down, however it will sweat vastly more that it can evaporate, and that needs to go somewhere. A good base layer, wicks the excess sweat away keeping you more comfortable.

so the bold's just marketing guff? :roll:

Soul Boy

I'll let someone else do the science, but I wear my Howies NBL all year round and it does its job very well.

I'd say not guff because I don't like to think Howies are into marketing guff, just good products at realistic prices. Having said that when they took Timberlands dollar, maybe things changed a little.....

laughingboy

I'm another convert to Merino wool baselayers. I have an Ice Breaker and an Endura Baa Baa, and there is little to choose between them.

They get washed weekly, when I swap them over.

My other tip for the lazy but sensible is a zinc oxide-based underarm deodorant. I use one called Trust that is available in Boots. It's an astonishing £8 for a tiny pot, but one application keeps me perfectly niff-free for a week, and a pot lasts me about a year.

I don't have showers at work, do a 30 mile round trip these days, and this regime works fantastically for me.

msw

If you do end up carrying stuff in, I've learned to take as much in on Monday as I can carry - shirts, T-shirts, whatever - thus limiting the really heavy trip to 1 day a week. Each day just take home the dirty stuff.

Oh and I love my Helly Hansen long-sleeve merino base layer, and wash it once a week - it doesn't get smelly in less time than that (almost miraculous). Wouldn't wear it all day though.

PBo

been thinking about the science of this - here's a possible solution, using some pretty hazy science memories....and not necessarily science vocab (e.g. interchanging heat/energy and water/sweat)

anyone with more up-to-date or in depth knowledge care to comment?

basic principle of energy transfer is entropy - a system moves to a situation where the energy is spread more evenly over more molecules, rather than being concentrated in a few.

So some of the energy moves from hot (high energy)body molecules to the cooler lower energy sweat molecules. This "balancing out" of energy lowers body temp as it heats sweat - some will evaporate removing the energy from the body/sweat system. (What I'm not clear about is if we'd feel cooler if the energy has left the body, but is still in contact with the skin on unevaporated sweat, or whether it does actually need to evaporate and remove the energy from the body/sweat system)

If the water has to evaporate before we experience the cooling effect, (rather than heat just moving to the sweat), then my idea is this - by removing excess sweat, that which remains will gain enough energy to evaporate at a quicker rate - more energy spread over less sweat molecules, rather than a lot of sweat gaining a little energy.

So therefore the idea that a wicking base layer cools you down is correct, and if merino removes more water than synthetics, it cools you more quickly, as the lower mount of water left evaporates quicker...

My theory falls down if the energy only needs to leave the body, not the body/sweat system, as in that case, entropy favours the little energy in lots of sweat scenario......

Oddjob62

PBo wrote:

(What I'm not clear about is if we'd feel cooler if the energy has left the body, but is still in contact with the skin on unevaporated sweat, or whether it does actually need to evaporate and remove the energy from the body/sweat system)

Another term for the cooling mechanism by sweating is "Evaporative Cooling". No evaporation = no cooling. That's why at a given temperature it's harder to cool down in humid compared to dry climates. The more moisture in the air, the less evaporation takes place on the surface of your skin.

PBo

Oddjob62 wrote:

PBo wrote:

(What I'm not clear about is if we'd feel cooler if the energy has left the body, but is still in contact with the skin on unevaporated sweat, or whether it does actually need to evaporate and remove the energy from the body/sweat system)

Another term for the cooling mechanism by sweating is "Evaporative Cooling". No evaporation = no cooling. That's why at a given temperature it's harder to cool down in humid compared to dry climates. The more moisture in the air, the less evaporation takes place on the surface of your skin.

Of course - had i thought this through I would have answered my own question.....cheers

agg25

I use an Icebreaker Merino top which I leave at work, and by the time I knock off, it's dry and ready to go without a smell. I can use the one top all week, 10 rides all up without it stinking. And I do sweat quite a bit as well.
Icebreaker, although more expensive is well worth it, I use their stuff for their travelwear as well as it's so light and versatile and lasts for days.

scottgeniusltd2005

update:

i bought a few icebreakers that were on sale and used them for the colder months, they were sorta smell free, but i could wear them thru lectures and not be too conscious of the smell (a bit like a small wet dog). i used synthetics for the warmers months and they stank the place out if i kept them on, but they are light enough to carry one for the homeward ride.

the downside of the icebreakers, is that that they have worn thru where i wear my messenger bag, not a major problem, but would be embarrassing if i had to go to hospital after a crash (my mum always told me to wear clean underwear).

so overall the wool wins for smell, but synthetics win for robustness.

jimmypippa

Panniers and merino?

or one of the new merino/synthetic mixes? e.g. this?

davmaggs

I've never had a drama with the man-made stuff, can't help but think that Merino is over-hyped. Saying that I am thinking of giving it a go just for a change.

desweller

It just bloody works. My synthetics tops stink after a couple of days, but my el-cheapo Planet X merino jerseys just do not smell. Ever. I am currently doing a (non-?)stinky experiment to see how long my long-sleeve jersey will go before it starts to smell. It's at 2 weeks so far...