Patagonia Men's Capilene Cool Merino Blend Shirt and Strider Pro 5" Shorts Reviews

Article by Sam Winebaum

Patagonia Capilene Cool Merino Blend Shirt ($69) & Patagonia Men’s Strider Pro 5”

Patagonia Capilene Cool Merino Blend Shirt ($69)

Best for: Running. travel, hiking, everyday wear in moderately warm to cool temperatures

Strengths: Versatile performance (and style), adaptable to a broad range of conditions and uses.

I have had a number of Patagonia Capeline and Merino shirts over the years. My last was a soft knit that has served me well but accumulated moisture and dried quite slowly. The latest Cool Cap, as Patagonia states, is clearly a “performance” shirt, yet one whose conservative styling allowing easy crossover to just about any activity on and off trail. 

The fabric is 3.5-oz 65% Responsible Wool Standard (RWS)-certified wool certified by Control Union and 35% recycled polyester jersey. 

This blend gives the shirt excellent moisture wicking properties with the polyester giving it strength and stretch as well as speeding drying. The woven make up is thin and provides plenty of evaporation on the go. The odor control after several days of continuous wear remained strong and is well above average..

The fit is what I would call semi relaxed in my usual medium. It has a slight drop tail.

Both of us are wearing the Cool Cap and Strider Pro Shorts

I have worn the Cool Cap running, trekking, and more casually for a month now. It has performed brilliantly, and looks great on and off trail. 

While not the ultimate in high summer temperature regulation (my black color not helping),  it clearly has a very broad temperature range utility that can take it from summer to winter for all sorts of activities.

If space is limited, it would be the single short sleeve I would take along for a long trip with multiple activities including running. 

Patagonia Men’s Strider Pro 5” (2025)

As with the Cool Cap shirt, I have had several Strider Pro shorts over the years but it has been a while. 

The 2025 edition surprised me. Its main fabric is a quick-drying 90% recycled polyester certified by OceanCycle and sourced from coastal communities at risk of plastic pollution with 10% spandex. It has four-way stretch and a durable water repellent (DWR) finish made without intentionally added PFAS to shed light moisture.

Tech details aside, the fabric is a very un trails like almost satiny material I might more closely associate with a road running short. It is very soft and comfortable with plenty of stretch.

The trails part are the 5 pockets. Road or trail I like pockets and the pockets here are well designed and mostly effective. The hips have 2 top drop in envelope pockets on each hip hat swallow most of my iPhone 16 Pro in case. 

Using the front ones which are positioned  a bit more to the front than usual for such pockets, I was surprised how secure and relatively bounce free the  phone carry was. Surprised as this is such a light short without a short tight,  but a brief so there is less structure to the short.  A stout waist draw cord for sure assists as does a slight coating of silicone gripper on the waist band, a nice touch

The rear has a zip pocket. It was very snug for my phone and, unlike the hip pockets, it had too much bounce for a phone for my tastes.

The shorts performed superbly on a variety of road and trail runs and while hiking but there is a but with my blue (and likely also the other light color choices ). The soft satiny fabric in those colors rapidly and prominently shows sweat or moisture..everywhere. Get the black if that is a concern.

The Cool Capilene Merino Shirt and Strider Pro Shorts are available now.

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Sam is the Editor and Founder of Road Trail Run. He is in his 60’s with 2025 Sam’s 54th year of running roads and trails. He has a decades old 2:28 marathon PR. These days he runs halves in the just sub 1:43 range if he gets very, very lucky. Sam trains 30-40 miles per week mostly at moderate paces on the roads and trails of New Hampshire and Utah be it on the run, hiking or on nordic skis. He is 5’9” tall and weighs about 160 lbs, if he is not enjoying too many fine New England IPA’s.

Samples were provided at no charge for review purposes. No compensation was provided by brands for writing this article. RoadTrail Run does have affiliate partnerships and may earn commission on products purchased via shopping links in this article. These partnerships do not influence our editorial content. The opinions herein are entirely the authors'.

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