Originally Posted by
philbob57
Kucharik sells real chamois and real wool, but I don't think the do bibs. 'Good synthetic pad' seems like an internally contradictory term. Reasons Lycra/synthetic replaced wool/chamois: cost, lycra/synthetic dries fast, leather does not, wool does not.
Have you worn both? I’d be willing to bet that 99% of the people who have ,prefer the current configuration, and that remaining 1 perecent didn’t actually understand the question.
Old wool shorts were saggy, wet, itchy, hot, and smelly. Admittedly, modern wool, particularly with the addition of Lycra is better than it was, but wool shorts still are no where near as nice as a good modern Lycra short or bib,
As to the chamois, a real chamois requires a lot of care, is hard as a rock if you don’t, offers no padding, and doesn’t wick moisture.
if wool and chamois were actually better, except for cost, there would still be high end offerings of wool/chamois shorts to high end buyers who weren’t price sensitive.
The fact there are almost no such shorts on offer tells you the market has spoken and modern synthetic fabrics and pads are dramatically superior.
if this wasjust a cost issue, Ralpha would be selling us $400 merino wool shorts with chamois from free range Tibetan sheep.