Testing Dr Cool gear: cooling cap and cooling shirt

[ActiveMSers]

The folks at Dr. Cool sent over a couple of evaporative cooling items to try out in the field: the Helmet Chiller cooling cap and their short sleeve cooling shirt. Looks well-made. Claims 30% reduction in surface temps on garment. I think it will work well in the dry Southwest, but for how long? We'll see....

http://www.drcoolrecovery.com/

[ActiveMSers]

Testing scheduled for Sunday if a) my bike is ready and b) my arms are up for a good ride. Will keep folks updated.

[ActiveMSers]

Tried the cap on a warmish day (near 80) under my bike helmet. It performed pretty much as expected. Fantastic for the first 20 minutes, but soon needed a recharge in our low-low humidity. A squirt from an icy water bottle did the trick. The question is, perhaps squirting my hair with icy water is just as effective and might last about as long. Testing continues....

[ActiveMSers]

Got to try the shirt over the weekend for my near 20-mile ride (out for nearly 4 hours with stops for rest, lunch, etc.). The good: it felt fabulous. The bad: the fabulousness wore off in under 30 minutes. I could refresh the shirt with water, but not too much since I needed to drink said water.

If you have a regular water source, this shirt works well to cool you. It might last longer in an A/C gym so refreshing isn't as necessary so soon. But for long spells, there are better options (but certainly not lighter).

And when my shirt dried out, I was thinking maybe white would have been a better sample to try than black, even if it does hide stains well....