Gobik Cell Skin Baselayer

In this article: review and opinion of the GOBIK Cell Skin undershirt.

Cell Skin is a base layer designed for medium and high temperatures with Polartec® Delta™ fabric. It is offered in both men’s and women’s versions. In this review we put this particular fabric to the test to see what it has to offer compared to classic technical undershirts.

Polartec® Delta™

Delta™ is a technical fabric from the American brand Polartec®, a specialist in the manufacture of high-performance fabrics for sports activities. During 2021, Gobik started using Polartec® fabrics in some of its garments. The result of this alliance has been the incredible Armour and Envy jackets that we have been able to analyze in this blog.

What’s new about Delta™ in the field of technical undershirts? Well, to sum it up very succinctly: coolness.

The purpose of the usual technical T-shirts is to remove moisture from the body as quickly as possible. To do this, they act as a second skin, with maximum contact, transporting sweat to the outside or to upper layers. This function is great for keeping us dry, but it has a downside: it doesn’t really «cool us down», it doesn’t lower our body temperature in hot situations.

Sweat is the body’s natural cooling mechanism. It wets us, and when it evaporates on contact with the air, it produces a cool sensation that reduces our temperature. You may be thinking: perfect, I’ll put on a cotton T-shirt that retains a lot of sweat and I’ll cool down. Yes, this option, as crazy as it may seem to you, is precisely what many runners have used to combat extreme heat. The downside is that cotton is very uncomfortable when it gets soaked, it sticks to our skin and absorbs too much moisture, greatly increasing its weight.

Delta™ is designed to function like a new generation «cotton t-shirt», delivering natural freshness, but with just the right amount of moisture. How does it do that? Well, it uses a blend of hydrophobic and hydrophilic fibers to disperse moisture into the fabric, while a 3D structure that minimizes the contact area lifts it away from our skin. In this way the T-shirt retains moisture, which is cooled by the air circulating inside, providing freshness, but without sticking to our skin like cotton.

What about on the bike? Well, we’ll tell you about it in our impressions on the road.

Cell Skin on the road

Accustomed to using the classic Gobik Second Skin, this new Cell Skin feels very soft, is shorter in the front, and long in the back, which on the bike gives us a perfect fit. We really liked the quality of the construction and how comfortable it feels.

Once on the bike, we started to get intense and sweaty. Immediately we noticed that the jersey creates a kind of intermediate chamber, the sweat comes out of our body and goes into it, keeping the fabric cool in contact with the wind. It’s hard to explain, but it’s as if we have a kind of built-in cooling device.

Conclusion

This T-shirt is perfect for training in warm and hot temperatures. Its fabric wicks away sweat and at the same time cools us. The fit is impeccable and its comfort is very high, with a very soft touch that does not produce chafing of any kind.

Any question? Find me on Instagram: @llargobike

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