So... first day of biking... and I discovered the wonderful joys of grease on my pant legs. What do you guys do about the problem? Go with shorts? Tighter pants? Tuck them into your socks?

BTW, this is from the perspective of everday commuting... so no skintight jerseys or anything.

You'd look funny with a jersey covering your legs.

Shorts are an option. Chain guards are an option. Look around and you may find a pant wrap that you can use, like a velcro stretchy strap thingy.

You can buy all kinds of straps, with reflectors, Velcro etc. to hold your pants leg out of the way. If you have to ride in your street pants, to work or something, you can use a section of an old inner tube. Just fold the pants up against your leg so they don't wrinkle, then tie the tube around your ankle. A big rubber band, piece of twine or shoelace, chain of paper clips or piece of duct tape also will work. I've used all those in a pinch. Just depends on how geeky you can tolerate looking.
Chain guards are great, but they're hard to fit to a bike with derailleurs. I've seen one made by OGK that will work, but can't find it online or in shops.

I commute ... and I wear cycling shorts, often with tights over them. They make cycling-specific clothing for a reason.

What are these pants of which you speak of ?



In the winter I wear fleece pants that are very close fitting with close fitting shell pants that could also cover slacks or jeans if need be.

In nicer weather I always wear loose cycling shorts and ankle length socks and carry the shell pants and a pair of long soccer socks that can be pulled over my knee if it does get too chilly.

If I care about appearance, I carefully fold over the cuffs and tuck them into my socks. Nothing to lose like with straps and bands, and the socks are always there to use. If I don't care (such as going to work), I just stuff the cuffs into my socks.

I have a FG bike with an old crankset; I've filed off the teeth from the outer ring to make a cuff-guard. When the new Sora crankset goes on, the outer chainring on that will be sacrificed for the same reason. Oddly, cheap bikes often have plastic guards fitted to the outer chainring, and sometimes mid-range cranksets are drilled to take them, but the guards aren't fitted. But high-end stuff... well practical items like cuff-guards aren't even thought of.

If I'm riding in pants I just roll 'em up!

yep, i just roll the right leg. sometimes i use electrical tape. and sometimes i just don't care - if i'm wearing old jeans or something.

Three words: Big rubber band.

Rivendell MUSA pants - they have velcro cuff adjuster at the bottom.

I like the velcro straps simply because they are also reflective. Very good if you are commuting, as you can rarely have enough reflective stuff on your body/bike .

East Hill

Riding around town, I'm usually in blue jeans. Sometimes I'll wear jeans for trail rides too (when it's cold out). I have a strap that I wrap around my pant leg when I'm on longer rides on my full-suspension, mountain-bike. When I forget the strap, I tuck my right pantleg into my right sock.

I've installed bash guards on two mountain-hardtails that I often ride in town. The bash guards serve to keep my pants out of the gears. On one of those bikes I've swapped out the original chainrings for two with a higher-tooth count. I made that swap to help make up for losing the third ring to the bashguard.

I do have cycling shorts, and I wear them for trail rides in warm weather. But in general, I just don't like to have to change clothes to ride the bike. When I run an errand, I want to just hop on the bike and go. I do wish manufacturers would put more creative energy into making that possible. It annoys me every time I go to the LBS and see a so-called commuter bike without a chainguard.

Grease-colored trousers.

Knickers.

Commercial pairs (which I prefer) are available from Swrve, Swobo, Chrome, Under the Weather, Bicycle Fixation, among others, for $100 - $150. These are generally made from technical fabric so they're water and wind resistant, stretchy, comfy on a bike (you can wear padded underwear under them, I don't but I've heard you can), look good on the bicycle and off. It is the looking good off the bicycle that keeps me away from tights and shorts; I think people look silly wearing spandex/tights/bicycle shorts unless they're on the bicycle and racing.

Or, you can make your own knickers from any durable pair of pants. Military surplus stores are supposedly a great place to find wool pants to make into knickers but I've never managed to find anything that fit me very well.

Wear higher socks when it's colder (I go with knee high), and shorter socks when it's warmer.

I used to wear my street clothes on my bicycle and got tired of dealing with grease (no matter how far I rolled my pant legs up, grease still found its way onto them), not to mention most slacks, jeans and khakis are cotton which isn't fun to wear once it gets wet.

Summer: shorts (of course)

Rain: Goretex w/overboots

Winter: moto pants over fleece

I'm not sure I understand the question though. Are you riding in work clothes?

Well, not quite work clothes, but basically jeans and khakis. Maybe the occasional business attire, but if I'm going for that I probably don't want to show up sweaty.

Right now I've gotten into the habit of tucking in my pants into my socks, but I think I may look into the strap idea.. that sounds really good.

Last time I tried not caring, I had my pant leg get caught in the gearing... which didn't turn out too good.

For a second I thought about using nylon ties, but then I realized you can't remove (or then reuse) them.

I wear shants.

Knee warmers when it's chilly, leg warmers when it's cold. I wear regular bike shorts. If you have a spandex complex, just wear regular shorts or mtb shorts with them.

When I wear jeans, I use a strap. Note that even with a strap, you can still have grease problems if you don't keep your chain clean.

Mountain bike shorts.
For the image conscious, they look like regular outdoorsy shorts but have the crotch padding.
If you don't like the padding, look for the same shorts made for recumbent riders... no padding.
I like them because they have pockets. And they come in various colors. And they dry fairly quick.

For my commute I just wear regular cargo shorts. Then again, my ride isn't that long. If it were longer, I'd wear mountain bike shorts like d2create mentioned. That's what I normally wear on my evening/weekend rides anyways. Quite comfy, and they look fairly normal, too (except many don't have back pockets for obvious reasons).

I have a few ways around this issue. If I have to ride in my dress/long pants then I use a pant/cuff strap. My preference though is to wear cycling shorts if the commute is longer than 5 miles. I'll either wear mountain bike specific shorts or road bike shorts with cargo shorts over them. I'm also not so modest as to not go in road bike shorts. My plan upon arrival is to change immediately and most of my Co-workers understand if I just came in rolling a bike that it stands to reason that whatever getup I have on will be changed to business attire as soon as the bike and any other needed cargo is attended to.

I roll both my pant legs when I ride. If you ride in a pair of pants a lot, and you only roll up one pant leg, the other pant leg will eventually fray at the bottom.

Jeans and slacks, no rolled legs.

Dark colors help, as do freshly-wiped-down chains!

I have a short commute. I use a binder clip to hold the cuff back. Rolling works too.