Originally Posted by
ofajen
I care more about not having saddle sores than I care whether people see me wearing cycling shorts. Indeed, in the warmer parts of the year like now, I’m usually wearing two pairs of cycling shorts, because that eliminates any issues with soreness.
And, I’ll confess, with the funky old bikes I ride and the eclectic ensemble of gear I wear, I think I am rather a source of amusement for some folks on our trails. That’s just fine by me.
Otto
This is basically an agreement with you, not an argument. I'm just using your post as an example.
This thread was about padding which, above all, is a practical/comfort/pressure point protection device. It has nothing to do with speed, performance or much of anything else. What you're saying is that the practical considerations of not getting saddle sores outweighs any concerns about image. That seems to me to be the only reasonable approach and it would be ridiculous to try to talk you into sacrificing your health, essentially, for image reasons, or to try to convince you that you don't have these problems when you forego cycling shorts.
Others, like myself, are simply stating that we are not having any problems that padding could be reasonably expected to address, therefore we don't use it. It strikes me as equally ridiculous to argue that we just don't know we're having these issues and are therefore foregoing the "optimal" gear for our needs..
Problem with these threads, and much of what I'm saying is typical of them, is that I see examples of both kinds of the ridiculous "try to convince you" posts, and people quite predictably getting very annoyed with other people assuming they know more about us than we know about ourselves. It is, underneath it all, a really insulting form of condescension. To the extent any of us are doing it, we should all knock it off already.
Ultimately, I think the "problem", such as it is, is that we get invested in our gear as being statements of who we are as people, and when someone doesn't want to conform to our use, we're seeing it as a direct challenge to our image of ourselves. Otherwise, I can't imagine any reason I'd want to convince anyone that what they're doing is wrong unless they were actually describing something dangerous to themselves and others (riding on roads without brakes or using bright rapid flashing lights on MUPS, for example).
I've never gotten a saddle sore in my life and I've never worn cycling shorts. I don't have the slightest idea why that would happen to you but not to me, and all the discussion in the world would probably never let us figure that out. But under those circumstances, it seems completely reasonable that you would wear cycling shorts and I wouldn't. For some reason, a lot of people seem to have a problem with that.