Originally Posted by
dddave
nobody is going to hit their balls on their TT pad and say, "wow, i'm glad that was there. i don't feel any pain at all!"
You're right. It's more like you squeak out, "ohdeargodkillmenow," from the ground next to your bike as you writhe around in pain. It's not until later that you realize it would have hurt oh so much more if you didn't have the pad.
I can tell you this from experience: having slammed my balls into the reinforcement between the Torker 280x top tubes both padded and not, top tube pads do provide some protection.