Skins cycle shorts review

Skins have extended their compression range to include bike-specific clothing for the first time. Never heard of compression clothing? Well, in essence, these tight-fitting clothes are engineered to improve your circulation and thus enhance your performance.

The cycle clothes are made from the same fine nylon/elastane fabric as products in the existing Skins range, with the addition of multi-depth and super-stretchy seat pads to keep you comfortable as you rack up the miles.

The downside to the padding is that you clearly won’t want to wear these off the bike to speed up your recovery after riding, which we reckon is the most valuable benefit of compression clothing.

The mesh bib sections (where present) are superbly breathable, while silicone rubber dots on the leg grippers hold the shorts in place perfectly.

We did find the seams behind the knees on the longs slightly annoying, but they’re flat-stitched, so there’s not too much rubbing.

The men’s range comes in six different sizes and the women’s in four – make sure you get the right ones or you’ll get no benefit from the compression at all.