Best Apparel — Curated from The Hiro Report

Because a lot of my favorite hobbies involve getting my hands either beat up or dirty, I rarely wear the beautiful wedding ring my wife gave me for fear of damaging it. Instead, most days I wear a silicone ring. I've tried a few different brands over the years, and currently wear a cheap QALO ring, but I've found these Enso rings to be really well made, and best of all they make a ton of fun variations. This new Lord of the Rings-inspired silicone One Ring has got my mouse pointer hovering over the Add to Cart button a few times a week right now.

I wrote about these hats recently; they're waterproof / sweat proof, ventilated for good airflow, and come in a number of different profiles depending on the type of hat you like. I find them to be super comfy, and perfect for running in the hot summer weather without getting gross sweat stains and residual odor. I just throw it on, run, give it a quick rinse in the sink after my run, and within a few hours it's dry and ready for me to wear while I play in the backyard with the kids. (The above link is for Amazon for ease, but you can find a better selection at the Alter Ego website.)

These are easily the softest t-shirts I own and also ridiculously fast drying, all without looking like a plasticky workout shirt. I've had to buy a couple of them so I wouldn't have to keep debating whether to wear them for my workouts or for lounging after work.

and Melin Hats - As we head into summer, I'm on the hunt for hot weather gear to make the insane Austin heat a little more tolerable. One of my biggest pain points with summers here is that all my hats wind up sweat-stained and stinky after just a few weeks of 90ºF/30ºC+ weather. Somebody turned me on to Alter Ego hats for running, and I'm not going back to any other running hat. They have a ton of different shapes/colors, but most importantly, they are all ultra-lightweight, ventilated, quick-dry, moisture-wicking, and water repellent. While researching more of their hats to buy, I stumbled across Melin hats, which seem to have the same tech but be more everyday-wear oriented rather than sports oriented like Alter Ego. I'll be trying them out soon too.

I'm no style icon, but living in Texas I'm always on the lookout for some good shorts come this time of year as temperatures routinely start landing north of 80ºF/27ºC. I recently discovered these Walking Shorts from Roark and am really digging them for their comfortable/flexible/breathable fabric that doesn't look like a tech fabric, and some nice travel features like zip-and-flap pockets and a back phone/stash pocket. Weirdly, this particular model of shorts with the drawstring waist is only $30, compared to the very similar model with a button waist that goes for $79.

For Thanksgiving, we went up to the Pacific Northwest for a week of hiking and exploring in the cold and rain. It was a blast, and this little ultralight windbreaker was a lifesaver. It packs down small enough to fit in your jeans' back pocket, but then quickly deploys to protect from chilly wind and light rain/drizzle, all while still being super breathable so you don't find yourself drowning in a sweat swamp while you hike or run. The Arcteryx one is pretty pricey (I was able to get a crazy Black Friday deal on mine), but this much more affordable Patagonia equivalent looks equally as good.

My favorite baseball hat. It’s made in a vintage style from surplus WWII Frogskin Camo fabric. Super quirky. $$$

I’m always wary of highlighting Kickstarter projects, but this is one that I’m particularly excited about, and it’s being done by a team of ex-Nike, Garmin, and Under Armour folks who know how to ship products like this. In short, this is a smart running shoe that tracks not just your pace and distance but also coaches you on your running technique for things like minimizing impact, perfecting your tempo and stride length, etc. As someone who really enjoys running but has to limit it due to repeated injuries from poor technique, I’m excited to give it a try. I backed it on day one.

Big thanks to Jeff for flagging these awesome adjustable tint sunglasses. For those who may not be camera nerds, ND filters attach over a lens to cut the amount of light passing through—much like sunglasses do. The difference here is that adjustable ND filters let you twist the filter to either increase or decrease the amount of light passing through. As a result, these sunglasses let you manually adjust how bright or dark you want a scene to be. If you are out in the Atacama Desert on a sunny day, you probably want to dial those things in. On the other hand, if you’re out on a cloudy day in the Irish countryside, you probably would want to let more light in. I need a pair.

These classic Ray-Bans don’t have any smart features, but they do fold up extra tiny to slip into a pocket. I bring mine on every trip I take.

I hinted about this stealth running wearable tech a few months back when they first launched their teaser. This week, Avelo took the wraps off with an awesome reveal video and website launch. In short, Avelo is a smart running shoe built by a bunch of senior Nike and Garmin alumni. The shoe and associated smartphone app analyzes your strides and footstrikes to coach you before, during, and after your runs on how you can improve, recover, and avoid injury. As someone who actually really enjoys running but has basically given it up due to repeated injuries, I'm really eager to give it a try. They're going live soon with pre-orders.

In a fun counterpoint to the race for advanced smart glasses, this Spain-based company makes eyeglass and sunglass frames modeled after the eye sockets of different pre-Homo Sapiens hominid ancestors. They’re funky, cool, and the aspiring paleontologist in me loves the backstory. I need to figure out how to get a pair (though many of their designs seem to be in-store exclusives in Europe). Shoutout to The Colophon design inspo newsletter for surfacing these this week.

I've written before about my love of the Proof 72-Hour t-shirt, but this trip was my first time putting their long sleeve, hooded version through its paces. Even thought it's technically Spring, the sun was doing its best Summer impression while we were out on the beach this last week. I was really impressed that it not only kept me from getting a savage sun burn, but the merino wool woven into the shirt made it dry ridiculously quickly and (most importantly) stay odor free. I brought just two of these shirts and alternated between them each day for 6 days of swimming in the ocean, hiking, and hanging at the bar... Remarkably, neither stink like they should from all the activity and both look clean enough to wear out to brunch.