I wear a skin cooler beanie from DeSoto Sports. I don’t notice a cooking effect but I live in Texas the humidity is too high for any evaporation but it does keep the sweat out of my eyes and doesn’t make my head feel hot.
If you want to confuse the insects you need a zebra pattern top. It confuses them and stops them landing.
Open mesh baselayer allows airflow to the skin for evaporative cooling. I’ve worn those types of baselayers for years and they both hold the jersey off the skin so you don’t get that sticky feeling and allow airflow between the structure of the mesh for evaporative cooling off of the skin.
Something like this:
Castelli used to make a similar base layer with that 3d effect, but now just have the thinner ones that don’t hold the jersey off the skin.
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I have no affiliation, but give the Hyperthreads mesh baselayer a shot. It might change your mind on ‘mesh’ baselayers. My experience with so-called mesh baselayers is that most are no different from non-mesh summer baselayers. But if you can find an open mesh like the old Castelli Seamless Sleeveless summer baselayer (no longer in production) or the Hyperthreads one, I think they are worth their weight in gold.
You guys must live in a dry climate because their is no evaporative cooling effect when the humidity is 70%+.
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Ride faster. Problem solved.
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There it is…base layers are holdovers from the days when jerseys were not as effective at wicking away moisture.
The technology of jerseys has improved so much over the years that it makes base layers irrelevant as it applies to cooling. I stop wearing them ~70*….
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Ha! I tried. I was even on my tri bike cruising over 20+. But my understanding is those flies are territorial and boy do they attack. They got me right on the belly. But that was on a rails to trails multi use path and the trees were close to the path. I mostly ride gravel now and where I ride the gravel road is wider than the paved path and most areas the trees are further off the road.
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I’ve noticed a new trend in jersey’s from a lot of high end brands where they are moving away from traditional mesh to more sheen materials. In my opinion they are using a “blend” of fabircs that don’t breath as much and just seem to make you sweat more compared to what you would traditionally think of as mesh. What’s frustrating is they advertise these materials to be cooler than traditional mesh which I’ve found false. Here is a picture of the “cool mesh” aka sheen material:
Compared to a more traditional “mesh” below which I think is noticeably cooler. 10 out of 10 times I prefer to wear the more mesh version and I have both. I live in Phoenix. It’s pretty damn hot here. Monsoons are starting and the humidity is high. The cool mesh just sucks. The traditional mesh rocks and pictured below:
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Nate or Johnathan was talking about base layers on a recent podcast, something like, with modern jerseys they just add an extra complexity for sweat to get through. In the UK with often less than favourable temperatures, especially in the early morning I’ll still wear one but in good constant temperatures I tend not too.
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Voler (made in USA) has a jersey called the Velocity Ascent. It has a much lighter overall construction than their regular Velocity jersey and the front is almost a mesh pattern. The back and shoulders have a weave that seems to be just a bit tighter so I’ve never had issues with sunburn but it definitely seems cooler on hot days. I’ve been very happy with it.
I protect my skin for 30-hour events by not doing 30-hour events.
(I don’t think that was helpful. 
)
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Fair enough!
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To be fair, I’m stalking this topic because I do ride 5-6 hours in some 80-90degree (F, C I would be 
) heat with intense sun. I just typically do it in regular jerseys and I don’t usually have a problem. Have been considering sunsleeves and/or mesh base layers, but hadn’t considered mesh jerseys. Usually my mitigation is to try to get on the road by 6 or 7am so I’m done with only an hour or two of peak heat through the day.
I’ve got a set of sun sleeves, they aren’t any cooler(not any hotter either) than going without, bonus is that I’m not having to reapply sunscreen to my arms. Generally I choose an early start, If I start by 6, i can have a century knocked out by 1 and avoid the hottest part of the day.(this is a mixed bag, an early start usually means a really high Relative Humidity so I end up soaked)
I ordered a Velocio Radiator jersey, I’ll be interested to see how I feel about it, should be here later this week and I’ve got a 100 mile gravel race on Saturday to test it out on.
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I’ll give a vote to the Castelli Climbers jersey. Mine’s an old 2.0 and despite worrying about sun burn through it, it gave me this nice line. It’s served me well for those hot rides for a few years, but is kinda delicate and has a few holes from plucks etc
Ride them at night.
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I have the Castili 3.0 and it’s pretty good no sunburn issues. Also have a POC mesh, don’t like it, feels too sticky. I also bought the Endura Mesh and it was so cool I kept looking down to see if it was unzipped and it was not it just breaths that well! Best summer jersey I have had. Kept me cool on a metric century in 85 degrees and humidity in Maryland. I also carry a cold bottle with just water in my back pocket just for squirting on myself to get the cooling effect, bc my drinking bottles both have electrolytes in them.
I had a pair of crocheted back gloves when I started riding. One year, they left a distinctive pattern on the backs of my hands. I was amazed at how many people knew what it was from…
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