Originally Posted by livedarklions

Blah, blah, blah. Like most people these days, they "research" the requirements of the activity by googling "what you need to know" articles and the like. Those are usually connected by ad revenue or otherwise to the products they will label as essential, and just searching on this is going to make the Pearl Azumi ads and the like pop up repeatedly in their browser.

To me what you just said sounds exactly like the marketers party line--convincing people that their product is necessary or beneficial by overstating the case is what they do. The best marketing doesn't even look like marketing. "Might not be the best experience" is so vague that it really can't be questioned, but it sure sounds like something I should worry about. It ignores the fact that most of the world doesn't wear anything special for their riding.

This is part of a much bigger discussion of whether the perception that road cycling has a high barrier to entry (which I think is out there) is a problem if you want more people to get involved. But OP is asking about shorts, so I'm going to bow out from that thread hijack.