Nopinz Pro-1 Road Men's Skinsuit with Speedpockets

The Nopinz Pro-1 Road skinsuit is a brilliant race-day option for the privateer racer. It's easy to get on, comfortable for hours at a time and the close fit should give you decent aero performance. The Speedpockets for race numbers (a no-cost option) are brilliant, too.

For years I have bought (or been given) a rather expensive skinsuit at the start of the race season, then spent the rest of the year slowly destroying it by poking safety pins through the material.

Number pockets aren't a new concept – in fact, NoPinz became popular by retro-fitting their pockets to other brands' skinsuits. It was mostly the time trial crowd that was interested, but now you'll find NoPinz number pockets on the skinsuits of road racers.

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I have to say that sliding a set of race numbers into these pockets is a fair bit easier than pinning them. There's no chance of the number flapping about, and you don't have to go around the car park asking strangers to do it for you.

While the clear pocket feels a little delicate, it has held up perfectly over the test period, and though the plastic material is a bit sweaty in warm weather, you'd have a number on your back anyway – which does the same thing.

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Away from the pockets, the Pro-1 is a very comfortable skinsuit. There's loads of stretch in every part of the garment, and that ensures the close fit never feels restrictive. I've happily worn the Pro-1 on some of my longer rides; four hours in the saddle poses no problems.

The stretch also makes getting the thing on nice and easy. When you've got to change in a Ford Fiesta, this is much appreciated. It's not something that every brand gets right, either. Rapha's similar skinsuit requires a helper to haul the top half over my shoulders.

The pad

Inside the Pro-1 you'll find a dense and comfortable pad with a very soft surface. It feels like there's extra padding towards the front of it, which is odd, but for me it gave brilliant cushioning when I was plonked on the nose of the saddle, chewing the bars and trying to stay on someone's wheel.

The cut of the skinsuit is very good, with a very close fit. The legs are quite long which isn't to my taste from a style point of view, but I'll duck for cover now as the aero-obsessed tell me it's faster to have skin covered.

The arms are easily pulled down to the elbows for a similar effect.

There is one spot where I don't like the finish. The zip cover at the neck is a bit rough and irritated me whenever I wasn't riding. As soon as I got riding and had a hillclimb effort to do, or a wheel to follow, I forgot about it.

Value

At £149.99, the Pro-1 skinsuit is brilliant value. The Castelli Sanremo 4.1 I usually race in is £260 with no number pockets, while the dhb Aeron LAB Raceline is £190 – again with no number pockets. The Rapha Crit Suit option mentioned above is £210 and does include number pockets, but they're not that see-through and I found some fit issues.

Overall

All in, this is a comfortable and well-fitting skinsuit that has the bonus of functional and easy-to-use number pockets (though if you don't want them, you can just have the feed pockets). The price is brilliant and aside from the cover for the zip, there's really nothing to dislike.

Verdict

Great fit, very comfortable and the number pockets are brilliant. At this price it's the easy choice