Hincapie Women’s X2 Triathlon Skinsuit – Review

Hincapie is a well-known name in the cycling world. The Hincapie brothers, George and Rich, both began racing at 8 years old, but chances are you’re more familiar with one of the two brothers—George Hincapie.  George was known as one of the greatest domestiques of all time, assisting in 9 Tour de France wins during his career.

Rich Hincapie channeled his passion for cycling into the business world, launching Hincapie Sportswear in 2003. The company grew quickly, and is still run by the Hincapie family today.

Considering the history behind the brand, we were eager to experience it for ourselves. Hincapie set us up with the women’s X2 Triathlon Skinsuit to test, and we’ve been riding with it for a few months. So does the brand live up to its rich cycling heritage? Read on to find out.

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The suit is made from a combination of Hincapie’s RaceFlow and Acqua Zeroã fabrics. Together, this combination provides a good amount of ventilation as well as compression and quick-drying abilities. And speaking of ventilation, the X2 features Reactor Mesh as well as coldblackã, from Swiss textile-finishing maker, Schoeller. For anyone who hasn’t experienced coldblack yet, it’s developed to reflect the sun’s rays to help keep you cooler, even with darker fabrics. The suit is also offers SPF 50+ rated UVA/UVB protection to prevent your skin from frying in the sun.

To get the suit on and off, you’ll find a full-body length zipper down the center, which of course can also be partially unzipped to help cool you down. And as for storage, there’s one small center lower-back pocket. We honestly never even used the back pocket since we tend to prefer to carry our nutrition on our bike or run belt, but it was still nice to know we could have a place to stash an emergency gel should we want to.

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Now on to the most important question: how did the suit feel? Our multisport editor was the primary tester of the X2, and she wore it for a few three-hour brick workouts in 90+ degree heat. Overall, the suit performed great. But at first, we did have our concerns. The zipper was a bit scary at first considering we’ve been chaffed by one too many over the years. However, the Hincapie suit’s zipper never dug into our skin once, even after hours of sweat and road grime. That was a big win our book. Second, even though we have used fabrics with coldblack technology before, the suit just looked as though it might be warm. Thankfully this was far from the case. We remained cool and comfortable throughout each of our workouts. In fact, we didn’t even feel the need the unzip—even on a morning topping out in the 90’s.

The suit also fit like a glove. It slipped on easily and offered just the right amount of compression. The X2 also features an antimicrobial T3 Tri Chamois, which provided plenty of support on the bike without feeling overly padded on the run.

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The X2 comes in two colors—black or purple (what Hincapie calls “eggplant”). We tested the black version and really liked the simple graphical touches. There is nothing over the top here in terms of “girly” designs. You can pick up the X2 for about $150, which is we feel is a good value for a suit of this quality. So if you’re on the market for a new trisuit, we’d definitely recommend giving the X2 a second look.

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