Originally Posted by
southpier
the best explanation I've read (might have been in one of Grant Petersen's books) went something like this:
sit on a hard surface for a few minutes until you become aware of your sitbones.
slide a pillow under your backside and notice while the pressure goes away on your sitbones, the remaining pillow squishes up between and around your legs.
same goes for padded shorts and saddles. the extra padding, displaced by your body weight, is the culprit causing more problems than it solves. all that padding is for folks that ride for 20 minutes or so at a time when it probably doesn't matter what they're wearing anyway.
Its like work pants with padded knees. Sitting on you knees on a hard floor is immediately uncomfortable because pressure is concentrated to a small spot, but Sliding 1/2 an inch hard foam under you knees instantly releaves the pain. To my mind this i no different than sitting directly on a hard surface with your sit bones. I get that if a saddle i very thick and soft you may "sink in" and move the pressure to the perineum, but Im guessing that is the reason many saddles now come with cutouts to prevent this from happening.
Having more padding in the saddle and none in the pants seem, to me, like the best solution to get rid of heat and wick away sweat that otherwise softens the skin. Just like any other sports garment I can think of.