long time cyclist, first pair of cycling "pants".
up till this week, my favorite things to wear for rides between 10 and 100 miles were, depending on the weather, old, well broken-in cutoff dockers, or mesh basketball shorts. no sores once on either ever.
I only took the dive into these spandex Bellweather things because I just moved to a town where cycling is so in fashion (in the USA!), there's even cute young women out mashing away on carbon racey looking things...
issue 1) am I supposed to have them hiked up to my belly button and *completely up on one side or the other of my danglies? how high? I noticed the pants hanging on the saddle nose and inch by inch lifted them to the point that I had to choose a side before I could be confident that I wouldn't be turning them into vented pants. once they were that high, they were up to the button... are they just made to accomodate folks with some weight to lose and someone bony like me just needs to get them hemmed way down so that while the crothc is high, the top chills on the hips like normal?
issue 2) chafe. aside from aerodynamics and/or racey pretense, how are these better than mesh shorts? I did miss this winter, but I already had over four hundred miles in the saddle since March before buying these. Last Friday I did seventy miles, careful not to overdo my winter butt, did 40 on Monday and was AOK, bought the pants yesterday and barely fit twenty miles in and came home hurting a little, but expected to be more than ready for 90 on Sunday. nope.