You have heard of the old adage, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me? You're fighting an uphill battle here.
Why is the standard answer always "spend more money"? Now that I'm straight that this is the touring, and not the C&V forum (oops!), here's another question for you multi-day riders: how does your synthetic gear smell after a few days on the road? I'm sure someone will answer with the "hey, put in some micro-silver etc. stuff in the thread, no problem! And you're out, what, a coupla Benjamins?
I have a closet full of old wool sweaters. I can wear them for several days before they start getting a bit skanky. You can pick one up at the local thrift store cheap if you don't have one. Of course, they'll have the stigma of low price, and you won't look cool. Except here in Portland, where the youth gravitate to retro and grunge and retire.
I only wear wool socks when I'm touring, and use a thin wool t-shirt as a base layer. I've even started to go a bit Grant Petersen and am trying wool undies under a pair of "touring" shorts on my commute, so far so good.
So, even if the textile wizards were to come up with some new whiz-bang fabric that is "air permeable" and doesn't stink after wearing it for 3 days straight, how many grillions of dollars does such a thing cost? And will it be any better than my wool t-shirt base,
thin vented shirt with velco pockets, then layer up with wool over that as necessary. If it gets damn cold, or pretty cold and rainy, I'll throw on a rain shell. If its going to be freezing and raining, that's either sleet or freezing rain, and I'll stay off my bike, thank you. I did make it through a hour's worth of marble sized hail at around 25F once, with just my wool layers and rain shell.
Me, I started following
what this guy wrote, and am warmer, drier, and those Franklins are keeping warm and dry in my wallet, thank you very much.