We’re big fans of the SweatHawg helmet liners. Thanks to the ultra absorbent material stitched into the front of each liner, the small pieces of fabric are great for keeping the sweat out of your eyes while riding. Thanks to evaporative cooling the liners never get too hot, and with the originals they worked very well – except in super humid locations.
The combination of a lot of sweat plus high humidity meant the liners were only good for an hour or so before they started dripping or needed wringing out. Still better than nothing, but SweatHawg thought they could improve on the original. That improvement comes in the form of the new Helmet Liner X2. Using the same design as the original, the X2 doubles up on the absorbent layer increasing the sweat soaking abilities by two fold.
Details next…
Still made in Oregon, the liners are the exact same shape as the originals with a standard and Hook and Loop model. The standard simply sits inside your helmet with all of the pads in place while the Hook and Loop model has you remove the frontal pads of your helmet so that the velcro attaches to front of the helmet liner.
The only physical difference between the original and the X2 is that the latter is a bit thicker thanks to the double layer of absorbent material. This could mean it might be a tight squeeze depending on how your helmet fits. If you are close to the maximum size of your helmet already stick with the original, but if you have additional room in the adjustment and the helmet isn’t already tight on your temples the X2 should fit fine.
The X2 liners showed up after the most humid part of our Summer had already passed, but we’ve still had enough hot days to get an early impression of the newest version. So far, while wearing the X2 liner I have not had a single drip of sweat escape the front of my helmet which couldn’t be said about the original after an hour or two. Those in drier climates who don’t sweat as much may still prefer the slimmer original, but the X2 seems like the perfect option for our humidity.
The X2 liners see a modest price increase from $20 to $22 for the standard X2 liner and $24 for the X2 hook an loop which probably barely covers the price of the extra material. It appears SweatHawg has another winner on their hands for the super sweaters out there.
