padded bike shorts but tomorrow I'll be adding full tights and wind pants. some stuff hangs in my bat cave (boiler room) to dry and maybe be used homeward, some stuff goes in a laundry bag

I just wear regular walking shorts when I ride. (I change into more formal clothes at work.) I don't like the feel of bicycling shorts, and I feel silly wearing them. I can ride in regular shorts on my touring bike all day long with no particular discomfort. ( On a 75 mi ride, whatever discomfort I do feel doesn't have much to do with shorts...)

I have a pair of cargo shorts for rides under twenty miles. My commute is 17.5 RT, and no real discomforts.

If I had a commute that long I'd wear cycling shorts. Otherwise I'd end up with sores.

I have a 4 mile commute though, so no special clothes for me. I'd probably wear regular shorts up to about a 10 mile commute. Anything much beyond 20 miles of riding in one day and I begin to despise jeans.

>No real reason to bother with cycle shorts unless I'm going to be in the saddle for longer than an hour

The part of this logic that I don't get is - what's your alternative? It's no more "bother" to wear cycling shorts than it is to wear normal shorts, *unless* you were either wearing the normal ones before or afterwards or both. Me, I wake up, put cycling shorts on, change them at work to long work pants - can't see how non-cycling shorts offer any benefit in convenience.

Steve

I sometimes wonder how many of you all would have been riding years ago before everybody was wearing padding diapers to ride? I remember my first few cross-country tours when I was younger where I all I wore were wool boxers, shorts and warm-up pants.

I mean really, cycling specific stuff is nice to have, but hardly a requirement for a long ride.

You can't? You can't see how not changing your shorts twice everyday is convenient?

I've been enjoying my shorts. It helps when I ride day after day after day after day ... and then ride a century ride on the weekend.

Ah yes, the good old days...We chafed and we liked it!

I'm too young. Was that in the 1800s? ;p

That's kind of what he said. It's only inconvenient if you wouldn't have to change anyway.

I can't wear shorts at work so if I'm going to wear shorts on the bike, - cycling or any other type of shorts, I'll need to change.

Even if I could wear shorts at work I'd still be sweaty mess in the morning anyway and would want to change.

I didn't chafe...perhaps you didn't realize that they made things like baby powder and vaseline, even way back then...not to mention things like wool boxers that wick sweat quite nicely.

Powdered wigs came in handy...didn't have to carry baby powder in the saddle bag.

Depends. All kidding aside,the issue is dependent on how far I'm going. For my little weekend job which under 5 miles from the house and I'm only on the clock five hours I keep my cycling shorts on. For my regular during the week job I removed my cycling gear for regular underclothes. Wearing cycling regalia for longer than eight hours while not on the bike is just a little too much to bear.

Bib shorts every time for my 24 mi rt commute. Comfort rules!

the old days? I'm old now ...

but really - back then - my butt hurt. Now it don't. Still can't write though, huh?

Padded shorts. Hang to dry during at work then back on for the ride home.

cycling shorts are for moisture/friction management and keeping the boys in place. If your butt hurt, it wasn't because of the shorts you were wearing. Don't get me wrong, I loves me bibs...but I don't need them to ride - at any distance.

I do. 120 mile rides suck otherwise.

you can't handle powdered wigs, wussy!

I have padded shorts. I always wear something over them, and I wash them out occasionally.

Just think it's funny, talking about how "We didn't used to have..." while typing on that new-fangled computer device thingy. "Yeah, we didn't have all that lightweight crap either...we made our bikes out of lead pipes! It weighed 75 pounds if it weighed an ounce!" I'd use a smiley emoticon here, but I hate them.

Yes, wool wicks quite nicely, it also used to itch. Good bless smartwool.

Same here. My commute is only a little over five miles if I take a direct route. I'm not even warmed up, on most days, when I reach the office building.

If I didn't have cycling clothes, I'd ride anyway. Being the not-quite-so-tender age of 40, I grew up riding in the late 70s and early 80s, when nobody I knew wore anything special for riding. I rode in gym shorts, I rode in jeans, I rode in whatever I happened to be wearing at the time, and I didn't think much about it. I also shifted my non-indexed 4-speed rear freewheel with levers on the stem, wrapped my bars with glorified ribbon, and had a padded saddle with "butt cheeks" molded into it (WAY too poor for a Brooks or other "good" saddle, even if I'd known when I was a kid that such a thing existed!)

Would I ride like that today? Sure, if we didn't have all the nice gear we have now, or if I didn't know any better. For my money, though, I'll be comfortable, and for me, comfortable means bike shorts and a jersey.

YMMV, as always.

Good wool clothing was around long before Smartwool (there was also polyester)...but I agree, I loves my Smartwool.