Your Head Deserves The Best, Ornot

I find it silly to be writing a review on a cap. It’s like trying to write about a T-shirt or tacos. Both super important, but not really quantifiable like a bike frame or a jersey. I’m honestly not sure how I talked myself into this, but I guess I can attribute it to my love for cycling caps. I just love them, on the bike and off.

But I didn’t feel that way before. I used to be an occasional hat guy and my sole collection was this well broken-in San Francisco Giants baseball cap. Unfortunately, I lost it in a tragic accident by leaving it inside a police car, after a boring embed with a bunch of SWAT teams doing mock hostage rescues for a day. I was too embarrassed to call up the lieutenant and be like “Yo, did I leave a Giants hat in the back of your SUV?” The replacement never felt right.

And as far as cycling caps go, I was always under the impression that caps, at least the types that Merckx and Ullrich wore, were expendable like a quart-size clear deli container from my favorite takeout place. It gets the job done, is good to reuse a couple times, and then bye bye bye. Let’s face it: cycling caps hardly ever get much attention from companies – besides slapping a some logo on a cruel 70’s design with equally rudimentary material that quickly fall apart. A terrible highway robbery.

But I think I’ve finally found my match, The Ornot Classic Cap.

I scoured the interwebs for a cap prior to a work trip in Hong Kong last September knowing I needed a flexible cap to keep my excessive sweating under control. Being a last minute buy, it was helpful Ornot is local here in San Francisco. I begrudgingly slapped my credit card down thinking $30 is a tad bit steep, while also wondering whether I could write it off.

I ended up, as per usual, sweating buckets in the never-ending late summer heat. Donned my new cap during a torrential rainstorm that destroyed a mobile phone and a camera. Washed my U.S. made, four-paneled dyed cotton twill cap multilple times in various hotel sinks. And it’s still in great shape, eleven months later.

Miserable day at work, but hey at least the cap hold up.

The visor has just the right amount of flex to be hand curved, ever so slightly. This is important as it raises the visor just enough for when I am behind my camera’s viewfinder. The soft KoolFit elastic sweatband offers all-day comfort. Unlike a bulky baseball cap, the Ornot Classic Cap can be quickly folded and stowed, a nice touch whether I am on a bike or preparing to don my gas mask/helmet at protests.

In case you’re wondering how it performs as a cycling cap under a helmet, it’s been wonderful under both my POC Ventral and Kask Valegro. Case closed.

There’s also something to be said about Ornot’s understated graphics, the play on shapes and colors make the cap stand out, without be outstanding. the low fuss-factor makes me feel like I wasn’t duped into shelling out my own dough to be someone else’s walking billboard. The minimalism speaks to me in a loud whisper. I am going to add another one to my collection soon, and maybe its pebble-colored sibling, just to mix it up. 

Hats off to you, Ornot, for making a cap worth writing about.