Patagonia Nine Trails Shorts | Review - Outdoors Magic

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Patagonia Nine Trails Shorts | Review

Comfortable, longer-cut running shorts complete with a long-legged 'boxer brief liner' to minimise chafing are the opposite of 'racy'.

‘Relaxed, almost casual look and cut camouflages a functional, chafing-beating boxer-style, long-legged stretch liner ‘

Outdoors Magic: Solid shorts with relaxed cut and comfortable, non-chafing boxer-length stretch liner. Choice of pockets too. Decent wicking and drying qualities too.

Outdoors Tragic: Sightly weighty.

Outdoors Grabbit? Heavier than the average short, the pay-off is a relaxed cut and an excellent anti-chafing, long-legged stretch liner. You even get three pockets, though we’re not convinced you need them all.

Full Specification

Trail running short / recycled polyester/spandex blend fabric / boxer-brief liner / rear zipped pocket / zipped front pockets / elasticated waistband with tie cord / Bluesign approved fabric / Polygiene anti-odour treatment / DWR treated fabric

Full Review Below

Rear zippered pocket holds keys quite happily though it's arguably more likely to make contact with the ground if you do go down - lwimages.co.uk

Nine Trails Shorts – The Tech

Solidly built shorts have an outer shell which uses a mix of recycled Polyester and Spandex and a floating, long-legged, wicking boxer-brief liner. The fabric’s treated with permanent Polygiene anti-odour stuff and a DWR to help shrug off light showers and water splashes.

Up top you get an elasticated waistband, backed up with a drawcord for extra security. Finally there’s some reflective detail for added safety.

Nine Trails Shorts – Performance

These shorts are almost the polar opposite of the Arc’teryx Adan Short we’ve just reviewed. For a start they weigh over twice as much at over 200g for a medium, the stretch fabric is heavier and thicker and the internal ‘boxer-brief’ is as long as the outer short to reduce the possibility of chafing.

As with the Salomon Fast Wing TW short, it’s a little like wearing a Lycra undershort, but the Patagonia version is cut looser and there’s no seamless inner panel, so the shorts look 100% normal.

We found them really comfortable in use with no chafing or fabric rucking up. They’re not as light and airy feeling as the Arc’teryx shorts, but they still feel reasonably cool and fast wicking and drying. The relaxed styling isn’t super slick, but we quite liked the laid-back vibe.

You get three pockets, all zipped. Two front ‘hand-warmer’ ones that we didn’t really use much plus on rear side pocket that’s fine for a key and a fiver. Generally we prefer a central rear pocket, but you could, we guess, use this with a bum-bag if you wanted to.

We’d like to say that the Polygiene treatment meant the shorts stayed fresh and happy, but our honest experience is that running shorts end up ponging whatever you try, so despite our positive experiences with Polygiene on baselayer tops, we wouldn’t expect too much down below.

Verdict

A proper solid feeling short that’s a little on the heavy side, but very comfortable in use. In particular, the extended liner short means there are no issues with elasticated hems riding up and rubbing in unfortunate areas.

The combination of a loose-ish cut and stretch fabric means movement isn’t restricted and they’re a good choice if you think ‘racy’ is an adjective best reserved for ‘going out’ wear rather than running kit.

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