Originally Posted by
staehpj1
It is interesting that so many here report wearing some kind of shorts or pants other than regular bike shorts, while on tour I saw little but bike shorts. It is similar to what I observed regarding Brooks saddles. Lots of chatter here and almost none on the road when I have been touring.
Most of my touring experience has been on the TA and the rest of the time I didn't see many other tourists. On the TA we met lots of other riders, but I can only remember one in "regular" non lycra shorts. Similarly I don't specifically recall seeing any Brooks saddles, but may have seen one or two and forgotten.
So I guess my question is, are most of you who are not wearing lycra touring somewhere other than the US? Is the norm on routes like the TA different from that on other routes for some reason? Or is the representation here different from what I see on the road for some other reason?
I'm not surprised by your stats. Bike shorts are the defacto option for all North American cyclists. I didn't know anything else was possible for longer rides until a year or two ago. The other part of your observation about the # of people on this forum who don't wear bike shorts is simply because the folks here are not your average bike tourists. We spend a lot of time online reading and chatting about the subject so we are bound to develop different opinions than folks that just ride their bikes and do some tours.
I met three groups of bike tourists all headed from AK to South America this summer. 2 out of the three were riding brooks saddles and not wearing any cycling specific clothing. Of the people I have toured with 80% used normal street clothes for touring, 75% used leather saddles, 75% used flat pedals. The only thread I can find to connect these folks [in my limited data set] is that the ones that wear street clothes tend to use their bikes a lot at home for transportation. My guess is that this favours wearing street clothes and as you ride more and more in street clothes you start to realize you don't really need nor necessarily want to wear bike specific clothes for tours and eventually you just stop wearing bike clothes.
Of the folks I see on the road that are out for a short long weekend type tour the majority are wearing cycle specific clothing.
Either way as long as you are comfortable and happy it really doesn't matter what you wear.