ScottCommutes

The era of stigmatizing "middle-aged men in Lycra" is over, isn't it? Everybody wears Lycra. I'm seeing an Adidas ad right now with a model in a matching Lycra 2-piece gym suit. Moms wear Lycra to pick up their kids from school. My son (10) wears essentially Lycra tights to baseball practice. Whole cheerleading squads wear "bike shorts". Basketball players wear long, loose shorts over their Lycra. Form-fitting athletic tops for men and women are certainly in style.

genejockey 

One time, one of my sons, wanting to wash his own clothes, "helpfully" put my bike clothes in the dryer so he could use the washer. That was the end of two pair of bibs. One was "Lycra Power", which was so loose afterwards I'd have had to gain 20-30 lbs to make them snug again.

rsbob 

I too was helpful and unloaded the washer directly into the dryer and put it on ‘high’. When my wife retrieved her sweater, it could have fit a 10 YO. That was when my helpful laundry days ended.

rsbob 

Guess it doesn’t go into the Racing forum then.

urbanknight

This is an old trick for men to not have to do laundry ever.

Chistophe516

Thanks for all the input.

Eric F 

My bike clothes - bibs, jerseys, arm/leg warmers, jackets, vests, socks, and underlayers - get washed with all my other clothes on the regular cycle in warm water, and extra spin time. I filter out bibs, jerseys, jackets, and vests to air dry inside the house. I don't worry about the other things. This is typically Friday evening, and everything is ready to ride Saturday morning. I've been doing it this way for years. No issues.

SoSmellyAir

I bet the short-term pain was worth the long-term gain.

rsbob 

It also worked in high school when cotton shirts required ironing. My mother told me to iron my own, so I left the iron in one place too long creating a Shroud of Turin effect, and I was relieved from ironing. Never told her it was intentional - but I sacrificed a shirt I didn’t like, so no great loss. Fail your way to success!

LarrySellerz

I wash them with my other clothes and dry them with my other clothes. Don’t wear em much so don’t know if they have degraded. People make cycling too complicated

rsbob 

And I thought your were money challenged. What you are doing by drying jerseys and shorts in a machine is significantly reducing their life span. Hanging up a few clothes to dry is not that complicated - unless…..

Koyote

Somehow my two favorite merino wool cycling jerseys went through the dryer on high heat… Fortunately one of my best riding buddies is about two sizes smaller than me.

rsbob 

I feel your pain. When I bought my first merino light weight base layer top, I forgot to remove it from the regular laundry. It was washed and dried on hot. Now it’s mid-forearm length but the rest of it still fits - snugly

SoSmellyAir

Revisions made to conform inquiry with commonly known fact.

LarrySellerz

using different washing methods for different clothes is not something I’m willing to do anymore. I wear the cycling clothes under shorts when I do wear em and don’t really care about them, heck one of the two is a 3xl women’s one that was given to me. I also wear normal shorts over bike shorts (don’t get why more people don’t do this tbh) so if they got thinner it’s fine.

squirtdad

shorts over bike shorts defeats some of the benefits of bike shorts (bunching of material will wear bike shorts faster, it is not (for me) comfortable and even slow people can feel the impact of more wind resistance)

staehpj1

I have not noticed that the dryer shortened the life of my shorts and bibs. I can't compare because I always have used the dryer, but my shorts that I bought at the Pearl Izumi outlet when I stopped in while riding the Trans America are still fine. I mention them because I know that was in 2007 so they are almost 32 years old now.

I still have some shorts that were my old shorts at that time that are shot. They seem to have had the elastic in the waistbands and cuffs fail while sitting in a drawer unused. I noticed that those failed in the last few years, but hadn't been in the rotation for a good while. They are probably 35-40 years old so I doubt any care option would have made the difference, but even it it would have I doubt that it would be worth the trouble.

I do wonder what the difference in how we experience what the dryer does to our shorts. Is it the shorts themselves? Something about how we launder them? Our observations or expectations? FWIW, my experiences were with Nashbar shorts way back in the old days and Pearl Izumi in the past 30+ years or so. At different points I bought shorts or bibs at different levels in the product lines.

I have had years with a lot of miles during that period and ones where i didn't ride much, but overall I did put in a lot of days of riding and a lot of wash cycles. These days I ride every day.