Kapusta

By the looks and description of those, I’m pretty sure those are meant to be worn under other shorts.

If they are not see through, I guess you could wear them on their own, but they look pretty short. More like boxer-briefs. Guess it depends on your sense of fashion, but they are too short for my tastes to wear without an outer layer.

Ride whatever you like. I’m fine with regular shorts for short distances and CAN go longer distances with them, but prefer something snug fitting with a chamois (lycra or lined baggies) if I am going to be on the bike for more than an hour or going to be sweating a lot and changing anyway.

OTOH, I HATE hanging around in a chamois once a ride is over so if I am going to be spending a lot of time off the bike, I’ll start to favor wicking boxer-briefs under an outer shell.

iamLefty

U just get used to wearing it. When i started riding mtb, i used to just wear any sports shorts. and i told myself i’ll never wear cycling shorts. Later i switched to mtb shorts, and seeing some fast riders wearing cycling shorts, it began to look cool to my eyes and i thought of trying it. I did when i started riding more and more and got more serious with it, first with some underwear underneath it, lol, and i was a bit shy about it. Later on i ditched the underwear, and i just got used to wearing it. Now i’m more into road bike, and i can’t remember the last time i wore anything other than cycling shorts.

Give it a try. Maybe you’ll like it.

indyfabz

Minor nicks from things like shaving are not a problem unless your INR is a good bit higher than where it should be. Once I shave for the first time in the spring I only need to do regular maintenance once or twice a week. I do it while showering. I will even do it while out on tour when I camp somewhere with a shower.

Hair getting pulled out from sliding on the ground can cause more severe wounds vs. bare legs. Then there is the tape. I have very sensitive skin. Having to pull off tape from hair arms or legs sucks. That's why I was pissed when I awoke from surgery and found all that crap taped to my arms.

sheddle

They aren't, if you're riding ten easy miles on a nice day you can get away with jeans as long as they're not too stiff to dismount safely, or something.

livedarklions

I have the opposite problem--shaving irritates my face skin enough that I'm not even slightly tempted to try it on my legs.

rumrunn6

for a while I wore bike shorts as-is but brought along running shorts to whip on when I got off the bike to go into gas stations & delis etc. when it was time to ride again I put the running shorts back in my bag. I do the same thing with my helmet & a light mesh cap. no one needs to see the mess above my eyebrows.

now I wear mountain bike shorts over my cycling shorts

Awaqa909

I would like to get more into cycling. The goal to eventually commute to work, witch is 10~ miles away. But there are problems with doing that, like arriving sweaty/smelly. I was thinking when I got some real miles on the bike and it finally broke, I would upgrade to something nicer, maybe even a e-bike. Right now I've got a mirror and a little tire kit in a bag, in the mail. So I can hopefully go farther. Right now it's up to 100F+ outside. I road one afternoon when it was 85~ and not much sun and didn't sweat much. I'm not sure how much cycling clothing will help me then, if I have to put a rack and pannier on, for clean clothes, lunch, etc. I feel like the Baleaf shorts are helping with sweat. I was thinking the cushion was to help, from getting sore from the seat. I need to figure out the seating position as it feels like I'm sitting more on the skinny part and that's hurting. What about this amazon item B077XRCGJ6 ? Silkworld men's 2 pack compression pants. I originally bought them for work, to wear as underwear under my jeans because it would get so hot and I would sweat so bad. I'm kind of confused now, are all cycling shorts padded? Is that what makes them cycling shorts? Can someone provide me some entry level brands, so I know what I'm looking for?

Tulok

Padding specifically “chamois” is what makes a cycling short.

If you train by riding hard and fast, pushing yourself to try to hold 20mph for an entire mile as a goal, once you achieve that you can ride easily at 12mph without breaking a sweat.

For new commuters I recommend riding hard and long on the weekends to get strong, and very slow and steady on the last 2-3 miles before you get to work to make extra sure that you’re nice and dry.

You shouldnt need any sort of shorts for any ride under an hour. And you should be able to ride 10 miles in an hour with a little practice and without pain and suffering.

You can adjust your seat closer to the bars with the bolt underneath the seat. It may help.

caloso

Those are not for cycling. See that big fat seam that runs right up the middle? You don't want that rubbing on your perineum for 10 miles.

MikeyMK

I like being a cyclist, but i don't wanna look like one.

The equipment goes on the bike. All of it.

Loose Chain

MAMIL = middle age male in lycra.

If the shorts are described as underwear which yours are then they are underwear meant to be worn under cycling shorts.

I do not need or wear padded cycling shorts, though unpadded types are hard to find, I look really hard. Walmart microfiber underwear underneath them. I also have several pears of barely padded as in dual layer in the crotch cycling undershorts. Padding just does not work for me and I do not need it no matter what the distance is.

surak

Amusing theory, but wrong. Someone needs a little education on the history of cycling skinsuits not being widely accepted, and even laughed at, by top tier cyclists until they realized it was faster. Pros are ultimately paid to go fast. How much merchandise do slow cyclists move in sales?

livedarklions

Naah, I really don't care about skin suits which, you fail to note, are only worn by pros for a very limited set of events. As I said in another post, the marketing makes it impossible to sort out whether or not the use really represents best practices, or it's an affectation. The fact that someone would even bring skin suits up in a discussion of appropriate kit for a guy who rides 10 miles a month shows the power of sponsorship as a marketing tool.

Pros are paid to go fast but they're also paid for product promotion. Saying "you'll go faster if you dress like a pro" is just a non sequitur, one that is encouraged by marketing strategy. Sorry, but the vast majority of people on this forum are not going fast enough for such small aerodynamic effects to have any noticeable impact.

KraneXL

This questioning is so ubiquitous maybe it should be a sticky? If I stated a thread with boxers vs brief there'd be a hundred reasons from each side as to why one is superior to the other. Which is to say it doesn't matter how they're designed or what anyone tells you how they're suppose to be worn. Wear what you feel is right and comfortable for you. If you feel you need an extra layer underneath then so be it. There is no such thing as one size fits all.

In fact, that's one sign among many.

You mean they work for you? Jeans are about the worst apparel for cycling thee is.Accoutrements are the difference between a cyclist and someone who rides a bike.

I-Like-To-Bike

Some marketeers have pitched their product based on a belief that there are sufficient people gullible enough to buy a product based on paid endorsements of "pros" and celebrities. Presumably the suckers will buy anything in an efort to emulate the so-called "pros."

tkamd73 

Forget the bike shorts, post more old cigarette ads, they are hilarious. Much more entertaining then bike short threads, where nobody is going to convince anybody of changing anything. Those old ads changed a lot of people’s lives, not for the better, but what the heck.
Tim

wyd

Just go with what works for you. What worked for me was a more comfortable seat. The seat took care of any issues I was having with comfort. The new seat was much cheaper that riding shorts and was easier than trying to find larger sized riding specific shorts. For shirts I just wear one of the those wicking ones that virtually every makes nowadays and I'm good to go. My riding is mainly Rail Trails and I ride from 10 to 20 miles at a time when I'm out.

AndreyT

Is this a joke thread?

The "shorts" that you mentioned are underwear. They are not really "shorts" at all, they are underpants. They are not supposed to be worn by themselves. They are specifically made to be worn as padding layer by those who want to wear their own non-padded shorts on top. If you wear these "shorts" by themselves, you'll get laughed at. Strange products like the one in question are made for people who don't like dedicated cycling clothing, and yet want to have some padding under their butts when riding. So, you put on these padded underpants first, and then wear your normal clothing over them.

If you want to ride in a single layer of clothing, just buy normal padded cycling shorts, road or MTB, and wear them. (Note: they should not have the word "underwear" in the product name)

Frankly, I thought that given the variety of dedicated cycling clothing styles available today, such weird underpants should've disappeared off the market by now. But apparently someone still makes them... Yet buying such underpants and then wearing them by themselves... well... keep it for Burning Man, Helloween or Dress Crazy day at the office.

surak

The only failures here are your lack of reading comprehension. You warped a benign explanation of why aerodynamics matter by pointing to skinsuit usage into some extreme straw man position in order to spout a silly theory. Then you doubled down on your ignorance of skinsuits even after I supplied some reading material to rectify it, missing the fact that savvier pros have been wearing skinsuits in every race because they care more for results than vanity. And the "impossible to sort out" bit is just an incredibly weak deflection considering aerodynamics are measurable, being physics and based on reality rather than opinion.

You also missed that the OP wants to eventually commute 10 miles to work. That's a fine distance to start caring about aerodynamics. Plus, as has been explained repeatedly on BF, being more aerodynamic will save more time for slower riders over the same distance. It's comical how some people on here refuse to believe in science and try to use wacky opinions to somehow disprove things that are actual facts.

AndreyT

That's quite technically illiterate. "Going fast enough" refers to the ground speed of a cyclist, but aerodynamic effects are actually determined by their airspeed. These two speeds are very different and a lot more unrelated that one might expect (unless you only ride in an enclosed velodrome). I ride against strong headwind quite often. And I do feel the aforementioned aerodynamic effects quite a bit, even though I'm definitely "not going fast enough". I'm sure everyone here knows very well what I'm talking about.

P.S. Personally, minority or not, I often ride at speeds that shatter car windows by sonic boom. KOMs on every segment. But that's not the point. The point is that one does not have to be that fast for the aerodynamic effects to matter (and matter a lot).

livedarklions

I'll keep all that in mind when I'm riding 25 mph in the flat in my tshirt and cargo shorts, often dealing with winds. In the big scheme of things, the effects of clothing are tiny, and really matter only if you're competing with racers roughly comparable to yourself. The effects of a headwind are higher if you're going faster, that's basic math, so the headwind thing is rather a red herring. If a headwind is so strong that a person can't maintain their normal slow speed of, say, 15 mph, you really think the aero clothing is going to get them past that?

Sorry if I think the notion of putting on a skin suit for a 10 mile commute is playing dress-up more than I think it's practical, but all of this "matter a lot" stuff is nonsense. They'll get a lot more benefit figuring out the stop signs and lights.

livedarklions

Yes, it's obviously whacky to note that pro cyclists income is directly related to their ability to promote the sales of the kit they so ostentatiously wear, and that they and their teams might have a bit of an incentive to overstate the "science" involved. But do carry on about how a skinsuit is going to make a 10 mile commute 10 seconds faster or whatever, it's really quite amusing.

HarborBandS

When I first got back in to cycling as a 40-something guy who was 205 lbs, I too felt self-conscious in cycling clothing, and typically went for MTB shorts or liner shorts under regular clothes. But now that I'm in better shape and faster on the bike, I rarely reach for these baggier clothing items unless I'm commuting to work (co-workers don't need to see me in lycra ever, LOL.).

Baggy shorts are just too unwieldy and flap around in the wind. It just becomes extra loose material between you and the saddle to slide around and get in the way. Sometimes you can snag baggy shorts on the nose of the saddle or on seat tube-mounted bottle cage. And yes, even at 18-20 mph the aero qualities of clothing make enough of a difference to matter to a non-racing cyclist.

But again, if I'm just out riding around with the kids or commuting to work or another destination that doesn't involve cycling, I wear baggy shorts and regular t-shirts.

surak

No one suggested that the OP should wear a skinsuit. At most people are explaining why not having flapping clothing has its advantages. But do carry on amusing us coming into threads bringing nothing but opinions that somehow prove that you can flout reality, supported by unverifiable stats as though you are an exception to physics, and making absurd interpretations to rational arguments to make yourself look like the only sane man in the room.

AndreyT

Sorry, but the practicality of the "skin suit" (i.e. tight cycling clothing) goes well beyond mere aerodynamics. I commute 7-8 miles (each way) every day. I ride hard and I arrive at my destination drenched in sweat. There's a massive difference in comfort (and healthiness) when riding like that in tight clothing vs. regular clothing (and yes, I tried both). So, no this is not just "playing dress-up".