End of last year I bought a synthetic bike-specific top from craft. This year I started wearing it under my Smartwool medium weight top for biking. Very smooth.

Went skiing this week, only brought the Smartwool top (well plus a winter jacket and a shirt). Was right next to my skin. It reminded me - yes, Smartwool stuff is still slightly irritating on my upper body. :-( Noticed as smooth as the synthetic. Also noticed, though, that my smartwool long underwear bottoms didn't bother me at all...guess some skin is more sensitive to it than others.

Also, despite all the hype about how it "doesn't smell", what people really seem to mean it "it doesn't smell more after you wear it a while". I know if it gets wet or I sweat much it starts to smell vaguely like a sheep. It's not a terrible smell, or a super strong smell, but it is a smell. (And yes I've washed my stuff several times and still noticed it.)

You might imagine that camel wool is very crude, but its not...its surprisingly fine and soft. It doesn't need to be very thick either...all the camel wool bits of clothing I own are pretty thin and still very warm. My feet roast in camel socks when wearing them indoors. I have a few pairs of Mongolian yak wool socks too, but those are harder to find and pretty expensive, but very warm, durable, and comfy.

Back in the 70's most of my sox were wool. I did bike commute even back then but I also played a ton of basketball (ofter biking to the various courts). I wore the wool sox everywhere all year including with my basketball sneakers when playing. My fellow hoopsters would tell me that it made thier feet hot just looking at my feet. Never could convince them how comfy my feet were even on the hottest days.


Picked up my x-c ski clothes back then at the suplus store, old wool cpo shirts, wool pants, caps

One of life's simple pleasures... Freshly cleaned warm wool socks on cold feet.