There’s no denying that trail running shoes are the most important bit of kit when it comes to tearing up the dirt on an off-road running adventure - but your choice of running legwear is arguably a close second for optimising your comfort and enjoyment on the trail. Montane have been in the trail running game for a long time, and their offerings of various leggings and shorts have always stood up well to our parameters of being comfortable, durable and breathable. And nowhere is this more apparent than in our Trail Running Gear Of The Year 2024 pick for trail running shorts: the Montane Slipstream Twin Skin Trail Running Shorts.
The Slipstreams are a double short construction: a thinner, stretchy nylon short underneath a polyester outer. This gives the best of both worlds when it comes to performance, with the tight fit and close feel of the inner shorts minimising chafing, and the outer short offering wicking capabilities and a good amount of coverage - plus a little bit more warmth and added durability than a single-skin short alone.
LFTOmontane.com
Materials
The materials used for the inner short and waistband are CARVICO with ECONYL®, a technical outdoor fabric enriched with recycled nylon - points for sustainability here. There is also some elastane in there for added compression and stretch, making the shorts feel as if they move with you. The feel against the skin is supple and soft, and the stitching feels barely there, making for a supremely comfortable wear.
The outer short is made from a mix of polyester and elastane, allowing for good thigh flexibility without feeling too loose. This layer is rugged and durable, and has survived many scrapes and bumps over styles and boulder fields so far. Together, the materials wick away sweat well, keeping you cool (but not too cool) on a tough uphill.
Waistband
The waistband forms the top part of the inner short, and has just enough stretch to be comfortable but flattering at the same time. It also stays up perfectly over long distances rather than slipping down every couple of km as we’ve found to be the case with other shorts. If you have a larger waist to hip ratio, you may find the elastic drawstring on the inside helpful for minimising slippage, but our tester (who is roughly the size and shape of an ironing board) had no such problems.
Pockets
With a total of three pockets, the Montane Twinskin slipstream shorts have the perfect amount of space for your gubbins - enough for the essentials but nothing too cavernous as to tempt you into weighing yourself down unnecessarily. There is one YKK zipped pocket at the back of the shorts, which fits either a small phone or a 125g pat of butter, and then there are two less secure pockets on the hips designed purely for running gels (although tunnocks caramel wafers work well in winter too). This eliminates the need for a running pack for middle distance runs, meaning you’re faster and lighter while having some emergency anti-bonk backup closeby.
Even when fully loaded, there is negligible effect on the efficiency of the waistband here; the only thing we would say is that larger phones might not fit, even with the elastane stretch.
Sustainability
These shorts use some recycled materials in their construction; not as much as we’d like to see, but it’s a start. Montane are well known for being good on the sustainability aspect of things,with a whole section on their website devoted to minimising their environmental impact, covering their promises to reduce PFCs, their policies on using recycled materials, and increasing the longevity of their products. The Montane Twinskin slipstream shorts certainly perform well in the latter category, with no wear and tear to report after months of testing: an impressive feat for such a lightweight product.
Verdict
Live for the Outdoors Gear of the Year Awards are coveted things: we don’t just hand them out to anyone. We feel the Twinskin Slipstreams are a fantastic mix of comfort, durability, weight, style and performance, and are a worthy winner of this accolade.