AeroGut

Adding another vote for nylon pants, usually marketed as “travel pants” or “hiking pants” and available from the major companies - REI, Columbia, Patagonia, North Face, etc.

They’re quick drying, lightweight, and durable, and they look good enough to wear anywhere around town, even after being crushed up in a bag all day.

I use the regular non-convertible ones.

Papa Tom

Are "nylon pants" what I was talking about?

AeroGut

i think the ones you described were polyester, but I’m not sure exactly what you had in mind. The nylon ones are the ones a number of people have mentioned as trekking or hiking pants that are sometimes convertible to shorts. They’re mostly made from rip-stop nylon.
In the 80s there were some popular pants generally called “parachute pants” that got the name from being made of ripstop nylon, but quite different style than the current hiking ones.

djb

seems to me that the breatheability of fabric has improved greatly. They are in general less clammy in hot.

BikeLite

exofficio makes cool pantaloons.

David in Maine

I can't bring myself to wear the zip off convertible pants, although I understand the utility. I used a pair of North Face nylon hiking pants for years. Now I use a pair from Eddie Bauer. They have some stretch so I can bike in them as well as wear them to the cafe at night. Something like these, but mine are several years old, so slightly different. https://www.eddiebauer.com/p/1295106...=1&color=Storm

Happy Feet

Zip off pants or "convertibles" can be a somewhat false economy, packing wise, unless they are very light and you also ride in the shorts. Even then they pose some issues when going minimal. If you ride all day in the shorts they will be dirty and you may not want to also wear them all evening as pants. If they act as your shorts you then don the pants in order to wash them. After getting into packing light it seemed I was just hauling a lot of zipper around. Now I take light nylon shorts and light nylon pants so I can switch between each.

A pair of exercise nylon shorts are very light and act as a "modesty" shell if one doesn't want to walk around in cycling shorts. To go really light take two cycling underwear, which are more shear than cycling shorts, and one nylon shorts. Ride in the underwear (they breath better) and then slip into the shorts when you hit a town. More for rural riding than urban settings I suppose.

indyfabz

One of the first things I do when I get done for the day is get out of my bibs and jersey. I am usually showered and changed before pitching the tent. The convertible pants are for around camp after riding is done.

Tourist in MSN

Last summer backpacking for a couple weeks (not cycling), I was really trying to cut weight because I was carrying all the weight. Brought nylon cargo shorts (205 grams), couple pair of underwear, lightweight swim suit and for long pants in cool mornings and evenings I had some fly-less wind pants that I could pull over everything else. Wind pants tipped the scale at 180 grams.

That said, when I am bike touring and I am not carrying the weight of my gear, my wheels are instead, I carry the convertible pants.

Happy Feet

I agree. I was more responding to the idea the OP might want to go light light weight due to taking his stuff on a unicycle.

Big props for that btw

UniChris

Absolutely! I've learned to do this even on day rides where I'm taking a 90 minute commuter train home - soon as I cool down I duck into the restroom and change everything. Which is part of why I'm carrying almost as much on day rides as I'd need to for a credit card tour.

Just ordered a random pair of nylon hiking pants and a cheap seatpost rack, the built-in angle of that is all wrong since my seatpost is vertical but I'm sort of hoping I can mount it upside down just under the saddle so that the angle will make it slope down tangent to the contour of the wheel. Or maybe I'll saw out the welded bend and splice it back together with some sort of doubler.

Supposed to have nice weather Saturday through Monday, my tentative plan works better with four days. In a way it's too bad I don't own or have a way to carry camping gear - the way things are going if I set out into the countryside there's a small but nonzero chance it might start to feel safer not to return home to a major city at all.

john m flores 

Another vote for a pair of synthetic hiking pants. Personally, I'd skip the convertibles pants, cargo pockets, included belt, ankle cinches, and other features that add weight and packed volume. I have a pair of EMS pants that are stripped of features and roll up nice and tight. I have a pair of Prana that doesn't have a full belt but rather a 6" long elasticized piece of fabric that functions as a belt.

indyfabz

Just happen to have my convertibles in my office. Cargo pockets on both sides and belt. That's a size 13 walking/light hiking shoe for perspective. If I stuff the uppers and legs separately the legs can be stuffed into dead space in the bag. All my non-riding clothing fits into inner compartment of one of my Ortlieb Back Packers along with my sleeping bag with room to spare.

Sometimes I tour in places where it can be in the 80s or even 90 when I hit camp and in the 50s or below when I am up reading at night. Nice to have the convertible option. They also act as bug barriers.

YMMV

stardognine

Yer mother dresses you funny. 🤓😁😉

Here’s mine, which look the same from over here. 😎

UniChris

The wheels (er, I mean wheel!) Is turning...



$15 Schwinn seatpost rack that was cheap enough though got lost in the package room and so didn't get a test ride this evening.

Absurdly heavy but given the price wasn't too hesitant to pick up a hacksaw and lop off the front loop of luggage rail where it would have interfered with the water bottles. One thing I don't like is that I have to pull the seatpost to attach or remove it, which until I improve my dual bottle cage adapter is a rather involved process.

Pictured "luggage" is an inherited and never tried sleeping bag, not really useful in my present plans but was at hand. If anything, I'd tie that to my pack and put heavier clothing on the rack. One thing it did make immediately obvious is that bare stuff sacks will be horrible - the custom one on my pack has some webbing loops to keep the cords from slipping out of place. Given anything I hang on that rack is doing double duty as a fender (at least until I get some sort of fender to put under it) I'll probably make a stuff sack of roughly this size out of that same green packcloth, and with the positioning loops and anything (even if it did end up being that sleeping bag) would go inside that.

It's tempting to put something on top of the rack but in some indoor pantomime I think that will interfere with mounting up, though something small might fit, for example it would be a great place for a bag of segmented tent poles, though again, those aren't in my current plans.

Anyway, plan is to take it outside tomorrow and try riding it a bit.

Oh, to return to the topic, my "Clothin" nylon "town pants" arrived. They're a little closer fitting in the legs than I'd like but I think the next size up would be too big. Will have to keep a careful eye on temperatures to see if I take those or the bulkier lined pair on the next trip.

...just realized if I pop off the foot bail my pump fits inside of the rack's tube... or complete between the tube and the side rail.

UniChris

Set up with custom bags and a load of what I'd actually want to bring - winter warmth clothing for non-riding time, and the mud-containing carrying bag. Headed out and gave it a ride.

Definitely ungainly - when walking it's easier to push backwards, and it always wants to flop over, so I had to tie the front handle to the railing to get the picture.

I usually hold the plastic front of the saddle when starting to mount up, and it's not at all balanced that way. But gave it a go and got on with the first try, and later after getting to good path the next as well.

It does feel a bit odd to ride with all that weight back there - on good paved path it's not too weird though I started to worry it might change how I was sitting with possible consequences for diving immediately into a commitment of serious miles. Was more concerned about how my next plans will take me on some unpaved towpath which might have some rutted spots, and being generally less familiar with how it is going to handle.

Also missed a few mounting attempts - not only does my weight have to get up over the top of the wheel and slightly in front, but I have to "toss" the weight of the luggage forward enough that I get a chance for my weight to control it. Otherwise if the weight on the rack "stalls out" and starts to go backwards before I can push the front forwards, it's about as if I'd failed to get my weight up there myself. Think the back of the bag might need a scuff guard too, as I suspect even if I came off the front it would tip backwards.

After a couple trial miles stopped and moved everything to my backpack, a far more familiar feeling. On the ride home felt like I was noticing even just the weight of that fairly solid aluminum rack, which I now want to weigh.

Short term conclusion is that while I'm glad I tried it, I'm taking it back off for the next ride and maybe trying to make just a little "fanny pack" to attach to the rear of the saddle and back of those water bottles.

And ironically think I'm going to take the existing heavier lined post-ride pants rather than the new nylon ones, since even though it's supposed to be warm spring is still unpredictable.

Tourist in MSN

Some trips I bring a pair of long undies just in case. Rarely use them, but are very light weight and pack down to nearly nothing. That said, my definition of light weight and packing volume may be quite different than yours since I had four panniers on the bike.

My last bike tour where it was sometimes hot but I also saw some snow on the side of the road:
- bike shorts,
- bike convertible pants with zip off legs, (usually wore as bike shorts but in cooler weather wore as bike pants with liner)
- long undies, (I do not recall if I used them or not, might have on a couple days when it was too windy to travel)
- swim suit that also functions like cargo shorts, (handy on a hot day in a campsite)
- convertible pants that I mostly wore in town or campground,
- rain pants.

When touring, I usually bring bike pants instead of wearing bike leg warmers with bike shorts.

On my last trip I spent several days sightseeing in cities, so the civilian pants (although convertible) make sense. And walking through an airport, I would rather wear civilian clothing than bike clothes.

UniChris

Survived my first credit card tour, Trenton crossing to Morrisville and riding up the Delaware on the D&L and bits of the D&R to Easton, PA, then to a motel in a sadly car-domain part of town. And back... honestly when I woke up yesterday morning I wasn't sure how I was going to ride at all. But asprin, coffee, 2nd microwave soup cup purchased the night before, and a long shower finally lead to a late start returning to the train station just at my dusk urban safety deadline. It's a good thing that weather concerns trimmed this to two days over the initial four day plan up into the Lehigh Gorge.



Dam at Easton, PA that was built to feed water to the D&L canal.

Left the ungainly luggage rack at home, replacing it with a smaller bag attached to the saddle and tied around and between my water bottles. Even with just that, I woke up with a case of tennis elbow from using primarily my right hand on the saddle to walk the wheel through parts of Trenton, excessively narrow towpath, paved path with tree root cracks sloping to the water (!) around the point in Easton, up and down hills and through car-ish areas out towards the hotel. So I'm really glad I didn't bring the larger rack.

Probably the most informative was meeting an actual bikepacker in Frenchtown. I had more stuff. But he'd spent the previous night camping in the Delaware water gap. He admitted it had been a cold morning and his fingers hadn't enjoyed taking down the tent... but really shows the difference between knowing what you are doing, and packing like a newbie. Had his tent in an amazingly small package crosswise on the bars, a long narrow top tube bag, and I guess sleeping bag and whatever passed for spare clothing in a bag projecting from the seat tube and saddle.

Probably could have done with the lighter "town pants" over the lined ones, but it did get cooler Saturday night when I walked over a mile back from the hotel for better food options. Also pulled out the polar fleece for that, with the supreme irony of realizing that while I'd ridden the canal towpath in dayglow yellow lycra, I was now walking around a pedestrian-unfriendly network of roads and onramps in all black.

Need to get pictures off my phone then may write up something about the trip itself.